Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The front line in Ukraine’s war has long stopped at the border. Moscow now says the map is bigger than that.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spent this week sharpening the language it uses about where it sees legitimate targets.
Spokesperson Maria Zakharova chose her Wednesday briefing in Moscow to name a target set NATO capitals have long worried about: the defense plants in Europe that keep Ukraine armed.
At the ministry’s regular press briefing on September 30, Zakharova said arms factories in European countries that produce weapons for Ukraine are “potential military targets for Russia,” according to the Russian state agency TASS.
“No one should assume that military plants outside Ukrainian territory that manufacture weapons for the Kiev regime will be safe. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken,” she said.
Zakharova did not name specific plants or countries.
The warning came in reply to a question about Poland’s reported willingness to host production of Patriot interceptor missiles for Ukraine’s air defense.
Zakharova argued that European governments are “directly involved” in the war through such supply arrangements, and that this prolongs rather than ends it.
A nuclear warning on the same day
Hours earlier, Russia had delivered a separate escalatory message. The Russian Embassy in Ireland posted a statement saying Moscow “would be ready to use all its arsenal, including nuclear weapons, to defend its territory” if NATO sought to blockade the Kaliningrad exclave on the Baltic.
The same text was handed to NATO in a diplomatic note, Meduza reported.
NATO rejected the framing. Secretary General Mark Rutte said the alliance’s exercises do not threaten Russian territory and urged Moscow to “stop the nuclear threats.”
From an arson in Tallinn to an open threat
Zakharova’s statement follows an unusually direct European accusation against Russian intelligence.
On September 29, Estonia’s security service and the government in Tallinn said Russian “special services” ordered an arson attack on a facility of Milrem Robotics, the Estonian maker of the THeMIS unmanned ground vehicle used in Ukraine.
Prime Minister Kristen Michal said the arson at Milrem on the night of August 15 was “an act of sabotage commissioned by the intelligence services of the Russian Federation,” and the government summoned Russia’s chargé d’affaires.
Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna called the arson “part of Russia’s broader campaign across Europe,” and Breaking Defense noted that the attack did not disrupt deliveries of Milrem’s robots to Ukraine.
Michal said Estonia’s answer would be “stronger security at home, more support for Ukraine and greater pressure on Russia.”
