Andrei Martyanov reads Putin's trip to the Kuril Islands as the clear tell. Time spent at Pacific Fleet headquarters, the order given on camera, the fleet commander answering that everything stands ready.
The target isn't European soil.
It's European shipping in Asian water, where nearly 400 Western vessels crossed Russia's economic zone last quarter, most of them British or French.
Stop one, find a violation, tow it into a Russian port and hold it there until someone in London or Paris picks up the phone.
His logic comes from the Black Sea, where Russia lost most of its fleet and still closed the lanes, because long-range missiles did what warships used to do.
Once insurers and shipping companies refuse to sail, the sea is shut and no navy was needed to shut it.
Which is the same weapon Iran is holding at Hormuz, now pointed at the other end of the world.
