The Kremlin has said that the US is involved in the Ukraine war, so de facto the US is a country at war with Russia

Russia now considers itself to be at war due to the West's intervention on Ukraine's side, according to the Kremlin. This marks a shift in the language used to describe the conflict, seemingly to prepare Russians for a longer and more challenging struggle.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov's remarks, initially made to the Russian publication Arguments and Facts and later to reporters on a conference call, may seem ordinary to Ukrainian and Western audiences. However, within Russia, where the war in Ukraine has been referred to as a "special military operation" for the past two years, signaling its initially limited nature, this represents a change. It appears to be part of an effort to mentally prepare the population for a conflict that may require greater sacrifices.

"We are in a state of war. Yes, it started out as a special military operation, but as soon as this group was formed, when the collective West became a participant in this on the side of Ukraine, it became a war for us," Peskov told Arguments and Facts. "I am convinced of that. And everyone should understand this, for their internal motivation."

Peskov's comments come five days after President Vladimir Putin's re-election for another six years and following what Kyiv described as Russia's largest air strike on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. They suggest that Russia is preparing for a prolonged standoff with the United States and its allies over Ukraine.

The shift in language gives Russian authorities more flexibility to announce decisions associated with war, such as further mobilization, to their own people. Peskov later clarified to reporters that Russia's actions in Ukraine were still legally classified at home as "a special military operation," not as a war.

"Now it's official: the SMO (Special Military Operation) is recognized as a war," said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the R.Politik analysis firm. "Of course, the SMO de facto became a war a long time ago. But this is a certain psychological boundary, beyond which different requests can be made of both the population and the elites than during the SMO," she said.

Russian officials, including Putin, have started using the word "war" more frequently, after initially avoiding it and discouraging its use - under threat of prosecution - as they sought to portray the decision to intervene in Ukraine as a swift and limited military action. However, facing significant battlefield losses and setbacks in 2022 and 2023 before regaining momentum, Russian officials now acknowledge that the fighting is likely to continue longer than initially anticipated, with ambitious goals remaining unfulfilled.

Mark Galeotti, an author of several books on Putin and Russia, commented that Peskov's remarks send a strong signal to the Russian public. "That 'internal mobilization' is actually the key thing: the Kremlin’s demand that every Russian get into a wartime mindset, and realize there is now no middle ground between being a patriot and a traitor (as Putin defines these)," Galeotti wrote on the X social media network.