Paul Goble
Staunton, July 6 – As the Putin’s expanded invasion of Ukraine has continued into its fifth year, the Kremlin leader and his government until now have refused to call it a war; but now Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, says that “what began as a special military operation” has transmogrified into “a full-fledged war.”
“If earlier the target was the demilitarization of Kyiv,” Peskov says, “Russia is now actualliy fighting with the unified military potential of NATO countries” and can expand its attacks to include both them and the political leadership in Ukraine (mk.ru/politics/2026/07/06/prishla-ochered-zelenskogo-izmenenie-statusa-svo-delaet-prosrochennogo-legalnoy-celyu.html).
In its report on how Russian military experts evaluate this shift in language, Moskovsky Komsomolets says that “unlike a special military operation where strikes are directed mainly at military infrastructure … [now in a war] the highest political and military leadership of the hostile state automatically becomes a legitimate target.”
According to “military conventions,” the paper continues, “the liquidation of the commanders of enemy forces and the heads of state who are directly giving order to strike at the territory of the Russian Federation are a combat task,” something all involved need to take note of.
Moskovsky Komsomolets cites the words of Moscow military expert that “Peskov’s statement is a signal to Kyiv and its patrons,” but he adds that the spokesman’s words “are addressed not so much to Washington or Brussels as to the Kyiv regime” and especially its leader.
Because that is so, “this is a clear warning,” Dandykin says, and argues that the Ukrainian president “should think about his personal security because his ‘untouchable’ status is automatically annulled when a state of war comes into existence. Dandykin says that this is of course “an escalation” but one Moscow has been forced to take.
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