With the United States and major powers tightening sanctions on Moscow, supplying weapons to Kyiv and training the Ukrainian army, Putin sees his nation as essentially at war with the United States and Europe on Ukrainian soil, he said. Khodorkovsky in Bloomberg. Western arguments that draw a hard line between the conflict on Ukrainian soil and the spread of war on NATO territory are a nuance that means little to Putin, said Khodorkovsky, whose dispute with the Russian leader in the beginning of the 2000s led him to spend almost a decade in prison before going into exile. “Putin said from the beginning that this war involves them,” said Khodorkovsky, 58. Putin “thinks that NATO is weak and will not defend the Baltic” if Russia attacks these nations, all former members of the Soviet Union. If that happens, Putin said, he believes that “NATO will collapse and that means American” global influence will plummet.
