Russia ramps up rhetoric but wants to avoid war with Nato, Western officials say

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to avoid a direct military confrontation with Nato, despite increasingly hostile rhetoric aimed at the UK and other allies over their support for Ukraine, Western officials believe.

Some reports have suggested the visit by CIA chief John Radcliffe to Moscow this week was, in part, to warn Russia against a possible attack on a member of the Euro-Atlantic military alliance.

But the Western officials, who asked not to be named, said recent warnings from Moscow, including that UK forces could be targeted in future or that its weapons factories could be hit, were "nothing new".

They were, they suggested, consistent with Russia's military doctrine to apply pressure on the West.

The officials suggested that the hostile rhetoric was also a reflection of the growing pressure Putin is facing at home, with slow and costly gains in Ukraine along with the impact of Ukrainian long-range strikes deep inside Russia.

Putin and his officials have repeatedly dismissed warnings of Russian plans to attack Nato countries as hysteria. And US President Donald Trump appears to believe the Russian leader – saying this week that "he's not going to attack a Nato territory".

Not long before launching his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Putin had given public assurances that he had no intention of attacking Russia's neighbour - despite overwhelming US intelligence that such preparations were in full swing.

However, the senior Western officials said on Friday that Russia would likely continue its "hybrid activity", short of direct military action, using methods such as cyber-attacks, sabotage and even assassination attempts.