Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russian authorities have been regularly threatening Ukraine and the West. They have used a variety of methods, from abstract statements about “red lines” to testing new nuclear weapons.
In September 2024, the level of aggressive rhetoric peaked, as evidenced by the Russian Threats Index calculated by OpenMinds.
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The intensification of military and nuclear threats may be linked to the election of Donald Trump and an effort to secure a more advantageous position in potential peace negotiations.
Russian threat index
In September 2024, The Russian Threat Index (RTI) reached its highest level since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine — 120 points. This is a 40% increase compared to the previous peak in October 2022.
The RTI measures the frequency and types of threatening statements made by Russian officials and distributed in pro-Kremlin media. (The detailed outline of the methodology behind RTI is further in the text.) The data spans from 1 January 2021 to 30 November 2024, with January 2022 – prior to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine – serving as the baseline index value of 100.
September 2024 increase is primarily driven by the Western approval for Ukraine to use long-range missiles on Russian territory. During September, there were 11 unique threatening statements (on average, one threat every 3 days), most of which consisted of nuclear and military threats.
ISW Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December, 31, 2024
Notably, State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin referenced Russia’s “more powerful weapons” and their flight time to Strasbourg, France. Dmitry Medvedev warned that Ukraine’s allies would be reduced to “wet spots.” Additionally, discussions about Russia’s updated nuclear doctrine intensified, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov describing it as a “signal to unfriendly nations.”
Moreover, the peak in the fall of 2024 differs from previous ones in its duration. It stays at a relatively high level for several months. For example, after the explosion of the Crimean Bridge threats stopped almost immediately after the incident – November 2022 is the second “calmest” month according to our index, even despite frequent attacks on the Ukrainian energy system and the presence of this topic in Russian propaganda.
The previous peak of RTI (100 points) was registered in January-February 2022 before the full-scale invasion. Then, Russian officials issued abstract threatening statements towards Ukraine and the West. For example, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declared “red lines” for Ukraine in the context of Euro-Atlantic integration. His deputy Sergei Ryabkov spoke about the “serious political political decisions” that the Kremlin would make in response to US policy.
Another surge happened after the explosion on the Crimean Bridge on October 8, 2022 (RTI reached 85). Its peculiarity was the vast presence of nuclear threats – they made up 30% of all threats that month.
The Russian Ministry of Defense for the first time used a narrative about a “dirty bomb” that Ukraine was allegedly developing and planned to commit a provocation against Russia. At the same time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called NATO to launch preventive strikes on Russia to avoid the use of nuclear weapons. Russian officials reacted to this, claiming that Zelenskyy was “calling for a world war“ and “inciting nuclear war.” Russian Ambassador to the United States at the time, Anatoly Antonov, stated that the US was “close to the red lines.”
From “red lines” to nuclear threats
We grouped all threats as “abstract” and “material”: the former includes vague statements without a specific target or response, the latter — clear messages with defined calls to action. Thus, the index consists of five categories:
- Abstract threats: general statements about “red lines” or “necessary measures” without clarity.
- Diplomatic actions: calls for boycotts or severing diplomatic relations.
- Economic retaliation: responses to sanctions imposed by Western countries.
- Military threats: troop movements, non-nuclear weapon displays, military exercises.
- Nuclear threats: missile tests, nuclear doctrine update, relocation of nuclear weapons to Belarus.
Since the beginning of 2022, Russian threats have changed in nature and become more “material”.
During 2022, the abstract threats amounted to 48% – this includes general formulations about “red lines” and “consequences” that Ukraine and the West will face if they increase the level of escalation. However, such statements were accompanied by threats to launch a nuclear strike on Ukraine as well, as in the case of the consequences of the explosion of the Crimean Bridge.
In 2023, the share of abstract threats fell to 27%, while military and nuclear threats increased from 30% to 48%.
In 2024, threats take on material form even more often. The share of military and nuclear statements has increased to 54%, which is 1.8 times higher than in 2022, while abstract statements remained at the 2023 level. Propaganda media more frequently highlighted military exercises, changes to nuclear doctrine, and weapons tests (for example, the test launch of the Sarmat missile that failed in September and the use of the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile to shell the Dnipro in November).
Who is the main Russian hawk?
If we consider the circulation of threats by key speakers, then Putin is the leader among Russian officials – he accounts for 30% of the total number of threats spoken. He is far ahead of his closest “persecutors” – Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (14%) and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev (12%). The top 5 is closed by press secretaries – Dmitry Peskov (10%) and Maria Zakharova (6%).
Putin more often makes abstract threats, they make up 45% of his threats range – these are “crossing of red lines”, “asymmetrical responses”, “immediate consequences” and so on. Military threats occupy the second place (39%): striking on enemy territory, weapons deployment, and military exercises.
Lavrov, like Putin, regularly makes abstract threats (68%).
Among the top 3, Medvedev expresses the most radical rhetoric related to nuclear escalation (33%). For example, at the beginning of 2023, he spoke about “retaliation strikes” against Ukraine, emphasising that Russia has no restrictions on the use of types of weapons.
How NATO is portrayed within Russia
According to the logic of Russian officials, supplies and usage of Western weapons are an example of “dragging” Ukraine’s allied countries into a direct conflict with Russia. For example, ex-Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu made such a claim in June 2023.
That is why supplies and, as a result, the destruction of Western machinery regularly fall into the focus of the Russian government and propaganda. For example, in 2024, the names of Ukraine’s partner countries appeared in 89% of Defense Ministry press briefings – either through a direct indication of the country or through the wording “NATO country”. In 2023, this figure was 48%. Such growth reinforces the narrative that Russia is not only at war with Ukraine.
NATO has a constant presence not only in Defense Ministry briefings but also in Russian propaganda stories. Frequent mention of the Alliance has become a part of a broader narrative aimed at the construction of an “external enemy” image. For example, only in November, we collected 98 858 posts on Russian social networks about the confrontation between Russia and NATO.
The Alliance was mentioned in the context of “planning an invasion of Belarus” – this statement by the Belarusian Ministry of Defense circulated in the Russian media in the context of “causing maximum damage to Russia.” Also, among the “repertoire of threats” for Russia are NATO’s plans to station ships in the Black Sea, the deployment of long-range missiles in Germany and Finland’s proposal to create an Alliance’s drone base on its territory. In addition, Russian regional exhibitions showcasing “captured equipment from the Armed Forces of Ukraine and NATO countries” are presented in a patriotic tone.
Moreover, comments under publications about the confrontation between Russia and NATO are often filled with bots. Only in November 2024, under news on this topic on the Russian social network VKontakte, bots wrote more than 5 000 comments – this is 13.5% of all comments within the topic. Most of the comments argue that Russia is unfairly labeled as an aggressor and that the war in Ukraine is a forced countermeasure against NATO’s efforts to weaken Russia.
The bots behave similarly under news about nuclear weapons – they wrote 8 700 comments (9%). They often accuse Ukraine of possible nuclear aggression and are also happy that in 1994 Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees (“It’s good that Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear weapons, otherwise Zelensky would have found a reason to use them, then no one would have thought it was enough.”).
The intensification of Russian threats, particularly military and nuclear ones, may be linked to the US presidential elections and an effort to secure a more advantageous position in potential war settlement negotiations. Since US President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly shared peace plans that propose freezing the war on the current front line. The desire of the Russian officials to have a more dominant negotiation position may explain not only the escalation of threats but also the intensification of the offensive in the east of Ukraine. During the autumn of 2024, the offensive reached its highest intensity since the start of the full-scale invasion.
Methodology
To assess the Russian Threat Index, we collected more than 1.2 million publications from 10 popular political Telegram channels (rian_ru, mash, readovkanews, bbbreaking, RVvoenkor, SolovievLive, rt_russian, tass_agency, tsargradtv, truekpru) for the period from January 1, 2021, to November 27, 2024.
Using morphological analysis, we filtered publications that cited Russian officials, resulting in 106 thousand posts. By applying keywords and phrases such as “response,” “strike,” “sanctions,” “consequences,” “threat,” “red line,” and others, the dataset was narrowed down to 940 posts referencing threats.
By threats, we refer to statements promising actions in response to an enemy’s actions that had not yet been implemented at the time of the statement. Such rhetoric often includes conditional sentences or marker words like “red lines” and “symmetrical response.”
Using a large language model, we filtered out irrelevant entries and identified key elements: the “threat source” (such as a person or country from which the threat originates), the “threat reason,” the “threat description,” the “threat target” (who the threat is directed at) , and the “threat category”. The categories are listed below:
- nuclear: threats associated with nuclear weapons or their deployment,
- military: threats to use military force or weapons,
- abstract: abstract threats (statements about “red lines”, promises of a “symmetrical response”, vague warnings and other vague language without specifying specific measures),
- economic: economic threats (sanctions, trade restrictions),
- diplomatic: diplomatic threats (severance of relations, expulsion of diplomats).
The model assessed confidence in the accurate definition and categorization of each threat using the “confidence score” parameter. Furthermore, the authors manually verified the data.
Reprinted from www.openminds.ltd. You can find the original here.
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