Timmerman: Putin Pushes the Limits

Opinion

Ken Timmerman’s Threat Watch, www.kentimmerman.com 9-12-25

Just when you thought the Ukraine war couldn’t get much worse, Putin this week sent 19 drones into Poland in an apparent test of NATO’s resolve.

The Poles immediately invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty. This is not Article 5, the mutual defense clause, but a call for consultations and analysis. In another words, one step before war.

What was Russia’s intent? What should be NATO’s response? So far, we don’t have answers to either question.

But what we saw with Poland’s immediate response – which was to scramble F-16 and F-35 jets – was the total mismatch between existing NATO capabilities and the threat posed by the cheap Iranian-designed drones Russia sent across the border.

Even worse: the NATO jets only shot down three, possibly four, of the nineteen Russian drones. Many of the others hit houses and caused the Poles to temporarily shut down four airports in the eastern part of the country.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the Russian attack “brings us the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II.”

The Ukrainians get hit with massive barrages of Russian drones – hundreds at a time – and yet manage to shoot down 80% to 90% of them. Here’s another case where NATO has something to learn from the Ukrainian military.

The Ukrainians have become adept at designing “counter-drone” drones, or “interceptor” drones that fly faster than the Iranian-designed kamikaze drones Russia is using. Ukrainian drone pilots have a ten to fifteen minute window in which they can intercept the invaders and either fly into them, shoot them down, or explode next to them.

Ukraine has been churning out its interceptor drones in massive quantities, and they cost somewhere between $1000 and $5000, a far cry from the $4 million per Patriot missile that NATO currently uses.

But is Putin getting ready to invade Poland? On Friday, the Russian and Belarus armed forces began Zaped 5 military exercises near the Polish border.

Zaped, which means “West,” was designed to demonstrate Russian capabilities against NATO. In October 2021, the Russians and Belorussians fielded 200,000 troops for these exercises — and finished off with an actual invasion of Ukraine.

Early reports this year, however, suggest they can barely field 8,000 troops, given how much of the Russian military is tied down in eastern Ukraine. So my guess is that Putin is employing a “low cost” field test of NATO defenses, both with the drone attacks on Poland and these latest exercises.

Again, how will NATO respond? So far, we don’t know.

This past week, of course, was not just the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks but was darkened even further by the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Like many of you, I am still ill a state of shock.

I had met Charlie early on in his career through David Horowitz, who was always on the look-out for young conservatives to promote. Even at eighteen or twenty, Charlie was impressive for his intellect, his energy, and his personality, always eager to engage.

He lived for dialogue and for his faith. His murderer tried to shut down dialogue and denied that faith.

When Utah Governor Spencer Cox announced the arrest of his murderer on Friday morning, he said Charlie’s death could be a turning point in our history. Either it will shock us into listening to our better angels and to start talking to one another, or it will further divide us. So far, that direction is unclear.

I discuss this, as well as the Iranian-backed Muslim Brotherhood expansion in Sudan, on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.

As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday in the Jacksonville, Florida area on 104.9 FM or 550 AM or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. You can listen later to the podcast here.

Yours in freedom,

Ken

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here.

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.

– Senior Fellow, America First Policy Institute (current)
– Republican nominee for Congress, Maryland District 8 (2012)
– President & CEO, Foundation for Democracy in Iran, www.iran.org
– Nobel Peace Prize nominee, 2006
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China’s President Xi took center stage this past week, hosting leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization countries to an economic summit that many have touted as the model for a “new” New World Order.

Notable among those attending was Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, one of the first world leaders to visit the White House after Trump’s re-election. Trump called Modi “a great friend of mine,” and said there was “a special bond” between the US and India.

That was then. After the China summit, Trump posted on Truth Social, “Looks like we’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together.”

What happened? For starters, of course, was Trump’s effort to pressure Putin by imposing an additional 25% tariff on Indian exports to the United States, bringing total tariffs on Indian goods to 50%.

As I have mentioned previously in this space, Trump, Putin, Xi, and Modi are playing geopolitical chess. Modi could have responded by cutting off his imports of Russian oil. Or he could have doubled down on his alliance with Putin.

It certainly looks like he chose Putin.

But has he also chosen China?

Remember, the two fought a brief but fierce border war as recently as 2020 that plunged relations between them into a deep freeze. It wasn’t until October 2024 that the Modi and Xi spoke again face to face, agreeing to disengage troops along their mutual border in the Himalayas.

Count me as skeptical that Modi has bought into the Russia-China-Iran axis. My guess is, he is trying to get a better deal from Trump.

After the economic summit, Xi donned a Mao suit and walked the red carpet side by side with Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un to oversea China’s annual military parade.

This year they commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, which Xi said had been won by the heroic efforts of China and the USSR.

He seemed to forget that China, at the time, was led by the Nationalist Party of Chang Kai-shek, and that the United States airlifted massive amounts of military supplies to Chang’s forces to help them expel the Japanese occupiers. Or that we did the same for the USSR, opening an air and land resupply corridor through Iran.

Both Xi and Putin have selective views of history. And they also share a very different view of the future.

For many years, they have been exploring the possibility of launching a new gold-backed currency to replace the dollar. China, Russia, and Iran have all been buying massive quantities of gold on world markets, a significant factor in driving up the price of gold.

But Mr. Market doesn’t believe in an alternative BRICS economy. Not even the Euro, which has the merit of being relatively transparent, has succeeded in supplanting the dollar. No one trusts that a BRICS yuanble would be fully convertible.

I see the summit and the military parade as more aspirational than reality. Would Xi, Putin, and Little Rocket Man like to see themselves as the alternative to the United States? Sure. Do they have the capabilities to supplant us? No way.

Trump was asked at the White House summit with US tech leaders if he feared a new “axis of evil” of China, Russia and North Korea when it came to developing Artificial Intelligence.

“I have no concerns,” he said. “We have the most brilliant people at this table, and nobody’s close.”

And the Russians and the Chinese know it.

Under Trump, the Pentagon is developing the first sixth generational fighter, the F-47, as well as a new supersonic stealth bomber, the B-21. We are also developing new generations of missile interceptors, drones, and battlespace management systems incorporating AI. Some truly scary stuff.

It was no accident that Trump staged that flyover of a B2 bomber in Alaska when Putin walked toward him on the red carpet.

The US has weapons that far outclass those of our rivals in current inventory and under development.

That doesn’t mean that we don’t face threats.

EU President Ursula von der Leyden claimed this week that Russia attempted to bring down her aircraft with a cyber attack on GPS satellites during a recent flight to Bulgaria.

She said that the pilots had to land the jet by reading from a map — you know, the paper kind you used to keep in the glove compartment of your car. (The technical term is a “sectional aeronautical chart.” Thank goodness we still have pilots who can read them).

Russia denied the allegation, as did the Bulgarian government. If true, it shows that Putin is very serious about his threats to the EU not to station troops in Ukraine. It also shows he is one very bad and ruthless головорез (golovorez). (No, I’m not a Russian linguist, but that’s the AI translation of “bad hombre.”)

I discuss all this, as well as the consequences of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorrist organization, on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.

As always, you can listen live at 1 PM on Saturday on 104.9 FM or 550 AM in the Jacksonville, Florida area, or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. If you miss it, you can tune into the podcast here.

Yours in freedom,

Ken