Kremlin spokesman Peskov responds to Podolyak’s prediction of ‘military escalation inside Russia’
On January 22, Mykhailo Podolyak, the press advisor to the Ukrainian President’s Office, told the journalist Michael Nacke that the war will inevitably escalate, reaching some of Russia’s largest and most “coddled” cities. On January 25, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded to this prediction, saying that it “confirms the correctness” of Moscow’s decision to invade Ukraine.
In his conversation with Nacke, Podolyak stressed that Ukraine was not conducting strikes on Russian territory, but this wouldn’t stop Russia from sinking into kickback warfare:
The war will move completely and totally to the Russian territory, and will be conducted not so much by means of Ukrainian military as by internal means related to protest.
Regardless of Ukraine, internal military escalation in Russia is imminent, and there will be strikes on different targets. What targets will be struck, by whom, and what for — that’s another question. But we cannot discuss it now, given the shortage of public information. Ukraine is not conducting strikes on Russian territory. Nevertheless, military escalation inside Russia is inevitable. As part of it, cities like Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and others — those lazy, coddled cities convinced that they inhabit a different reality — will be affected too. But this escalation will be Russia’s internal problem.
Although Russian regions adjacent to the Ukrainian border have reported civilian losses from shelling, Kyiv denies involvement in the strikes.
Peskov responded to these remarks by saying:
It’s evident that the Kyiv regime stops at nothing, which confirms once again the correctness of the path chosen, and of our intention to protect ourselves from this danger.
This continues the Kremlin’s consistent pattern of presenting the war as a forced measure, countering the threats presented by Kyiv, the U.S., and NATO.