How Western Europe invented the ‘Russian threat’ – and clung to it for 500 years
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
How Western Europe invented the ‘Russian threat’ – and clung to it for 500 years
By Timofey Bordachev, Program Director of the Valdai Club
In recent weeks, tensions between European political elites and Russia have flared once more. A drone incident in Poland, an alleged violation of Estonian airspace by Russian jets, and calls from Eastern European politicians to shoot down Russian aircraft all point to a deliberate effort at escalation.
This sudden surge of provocation is less about Moscow and more about the EU’s own insecurity. With the United States steadily reducing its security guarantees, the bloc’s governments are grasping at their oldest weapon: the myth of the ‘Russian threat’.
It is a myth that has lingered in the European imagination for over 500 years, and it tells us more about Western Europe’s cowardice and greed than about Russia itself
Two realities drive the EU’s current posture. First, Washington’s appetite for underwriting European defense is waning. Reports in Western media suggest that US officials recently told their European counterparts that direct military aid to Eastern Europe may soon be scaled back. For elites in the Baltics and former Soviet republics, this is a nightmare scenario. Their foreign policy has always revolved around one thing: provoking Russia to extract protection and resources from abroad.
Second, the EU has no alternative strategy. Without US leadership, it cannot conceive of a foreign policy beyond confrontation with Moscow. Reviving the Russian bogeyman provides a convenient way to retain Washington’s attention – and money.
Yet the irony is obvious. Russia has no interest in punishing its smaller neighbors. Moscow does not seek revenge on the Baltics, Poland, or Finland for decades of anti-Russian rhetoric. Their importance in world affairs is negligible. But for their elites, clinging to the myth of Russian aggression has been the only foreign policy achievement of their independence.
The origins of Russophobia
The roots of this myth lie not in the Cold War or the 19th century rivalry between empires, but in the late 15th century. Historians trace its emergence to the cowardice of the Baltic barons and the opportunism of German knights in Livonia and Prussia.
In the 1480s, Poland’s kings considered sending these knights south to fight the expanding Ottoman Empire. The plan terrified them. For centuries, they had lived comfortably in the Baltics, bullying local populations and skirmishing with Russian militias at little risk. Facing the Turks was another matter. The memory of Nicopolis – where Ottoman forces executed nearly all captured knights – was still fresh.
Unwilling to face a real war, the Livonian and Prussian knights launched a propaganda campaign. Their aim was to convince the rest of Europe that Russia was as dangerous as, or even more dangerous than, the Turks. If successful, they could keep their privileges at home, avoid Ottoman swords, and secure papal approval to treat their border clashes with Russians as a holy war.
The strategy worked. Rome granted indulgences and support, ensuring the knights could stay put while still enjoying the prestige of crusaders.
As historian Marina Bessudnova notes, the 1508 Livonian chronicle ‘The Wonderful Story of the Struggle of the Livonian Landgraves against the Russians and Tatars’ provided the finishing touches to this propaganda. Tellingly, the Baltic barons’ private letters contain no mention of a Russian threat. The danger was never real on the ground – only in the stories they sold to Europe.
Thus, the myth was born: a fusion of fear, convenience, and profit. Over time, Western Europe, particularly France and England, absorbed it into a broader Russophobia – equal parts contempt and anxiety over a vast empire they could neither conquer nor ignore.
Echoes in the present
Today, history is repeating itself. Once again, Russia’s neighbors, anxious and insecure, seek protection from a distant patron preoccupied with larger challenges. Five centuries ago, the Ottomans consumed Europe’s attention. Today, it is China – the true strategic rival of the United States.
For Eastern Europe’s elites, little has changed. They cannot imagine a political identity without playing the role of frontier victims. Their economies and influence are too limited to matter on their own, so they inflate the specter of Russian aggression in order to remain relevant to Washington and Brussels.
Donald Trump and his team have said repeatedly that Russia has no intention of attacking the EU. Moscow has neither the desire nor the need to seize the Baltics or Poland. In the 15th century, Ivan III was concerned with merchant rights and economic relations, not with conquest for conquest’s sake. Today, Russia’s goals are equally pragmatic: stability, sovereignty, and fair relations with its neighbors.
Poland and the rest of Europe
The contrast with Poland is instructive. In the 15th century, Poland agitated for war with Russia. In the 21st, it has chosen a more cautious course, focusing on steady economic growth and avoiding reckless entanglements. Unlike the Baltics, Warsaw has built real weight in European politics. That success has made it a target of envy in Berlin, Paris, and London, who would prefer Poland to be dragged into open confrontation with Russia.
But Poland’s refusal to adopt the euro has given it resilience, limiting the leverage of Germany and France. Washington, too, is reluctant to risk a European conflict that would distract from its priorities in the Pacific. For these reasons, the direst scenarios may yet be avoided
The lesson of history
The myth of the Russian threat was not born of Russian ambition but of broader European cowardice and greed. Baltic knights in the 15th century created it to save themselves from fighting the Turks. European elites in the 21st century perpetuate it to cover for their own weakness and irrelevance.
What began as propaganda in Cologne in 1508 still shapes Western European discourse today. But myths cannot change reality. Russia does not seek conflict. It seeks only to secure its interests, just as it did in Ivan III’s day.
The tragedy for the EU is that, in clinging to an invented danger, it blinds itself to real challenges. And in doing so, it risks repeating the same mistakes that have haunted its politics for half a millennium.
This article was first published by Vzglyad newspaper and was translated and edited by the RT team.
Kremlin slams ‘reckless’ NATO threats to shoot down Russian planes
Threats by NATO member states to shoot down Russian warplanes are “reckless and irresponsible,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said. He insisted that no hard evidence has been presented to back up allegations that Russian fighter jets violated bloc members’ airspace.
Earlier this month, Poland alleged that multiple Russian drones had entered its territory. Estonia made similar claims of airspace violations last Friday, requesting urgent consultations with fellow NATO member states.
Moscow has denied any breaches of the military bloc’s airspace. Responding to the Estonia claim, the Russian Defense Ministry said three MiG-31s were conducting a routine flight from Karelia Region, east of Finland, to an airfield in Kaliningrad Region, a Russian exclave bordering Poland and Lithuania, and that they strictly flew over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea.
When asked to comment on a report by Bloomberg, in which Western diplomats were cited as threatening to shoot down intruding Russian warplanes, Peskov said on Friday that “this is a very reckless and irresponsible statement.”
“Allegations against Russia that its warplanes have violated someone’s airspace are groundless,” the official said, noting that “no credible evidence has been produced” to corroborate the claims.
The Bloomberg report cited anonymous officials as claiming that earlier this week, British, French, and German representatives had held a closed-door meeting with Russian officials in Moscow. According to the publication, the Western diplomats warned that NATO was prepared to shoot down Russian warplanes in the event of airspace violations.
Earlier this week, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said he would not rule out such a scenario, but that decisions are made strictly on a case-by-case basis.
In an interview with France’s RTL radio station on Thursday, Moscow’s ambassador to Paris, Aleksey Meshkov, cautioned that such an incident would trigger a “war” between NATO and Russia.
Zelensky rules out territorial concessions to Russia
Ukraine will never recognize the incorporation of its former territories into Russia and wants them back through either military or diplomatic means, the country’s leader, Vladimir Zelensky, has said.
Zelensky made the remarks in an interview with Axios aired on Friday, shortly before he departed the UN General Assembly in New York. The Ukrainian leader reiterated his longstanding position that Kiev would never recognize the loss of territory to Russia.
“We will never recognize these territories that are temporarily occupied by Russia. We cannot do this,” he stated.
Opting for diplomacy to get the territories back instead of sticking to purely military means is regarded as a good “compromise” by the Ukrainian leader.
“If we don’t have power to bring back these territories, so we are ready to speak about it. We are ready to get it back sometime in the future by diplomatic way, not with weapon. And I think this is a good compromise for everybody, is that we have to decide such things now in dialogue and less losses,” Zelensky stated.
Ukraine lays claims to the Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk People’s Republics (LPR), Kherson and Zaporozhye regions, as well as the Crimean peninsula. Moscow has repeatedly signaled the status of its new territories is not negotiable and regards them as an integral part of Russia.
Crimea broke away from Ukraine in early 2014 in the aftermath of a Western-backed coup in Kiev that toppled the country’s then president, Viktor Yanukovych, and ultimately triggered a conflict in Donbass. Crimea subsequently joined Russia via a referendum.
The four other regions joined Russia in late 2022 following a series of referendums during which the idea was overwhelmingly backed by locals. While the Russian military has liberated the entirety of the LPR territory, Moscow’s control over other former Ukrainian regions remains partial.
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
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