Putin's New Hardline? Second Update

Response to Alexander Mercouris' Comments of 3 February

I would like to return to the issue of whether or not Russia has turned to a ‘new hard line’ in response to the seeming assassination attempt on the life of Russian President Vladimir Putin represented by the December 28th massive drone strike on Putin’s residence in Valdai, Novgorod. There has been some back and forth on this issue between Aleksandr Mercouris on his superb podcast, myself, and the excellent analyst, long-time peace activist, and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern. I am electronically or virtually acquainted with both of them and eagerly imbibe their work, but I have never met them in person. Initially, I responded to Alexander’s podcast, in which he proposed that there is such a new hard line based on his close and plausible reading of a statement by Putin and another by his foreign policy advisor Yurii Ushakov (https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/putins-new-hardline-update?r=1qt5jg; https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/putins-new-hard-line?r=1qt5jg; and ). Ray McGovern chimed in that Alexander may be over interpreting the Russian statements he cites.

Although I also saw Alexander’s original observation that a new, harder Russian line is being established to be a slight over-reading of the statements he cited, I thought his interpretation was reasonable, plausible and may turn out to be accurate, though I disagree with it (https://gordonhahn.substack.com/p/putins-new-hardline-update?r=1qt5jg). It certainly would be understandable if Moscow toughened its approach in the wake of such an attack, but stated intention to implement a harder line is not yet a new hard line policy.