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Truth or bluff? Why Putin's nuclear warnings have the West worried

26 Comments
By Guy Faulconbridge and Andrew Osborn

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Putin would have invaded Ukraine regardless of where NATO's borders are.

Not this time

Yes, he would have. Find out what the ideology of Russkiy Mir is about. Adherents of that ideology, among them Vladimir Putin and that Russian Orthodox prelate, consider Ukraine, the 3 Baltic states, Georgia and Kazakhstan to be fake nations that are rightfully part of Russia and that Russia has this sacred duty to take them back. The Russians complain the Kazakhs are engaging in a genocide against Russians living there, mainly because the Kazakhs no longer consider Russian to be an official language. The Russians claim the three Baltic states and Ukraine are run by Nazis. They are out of their minds. NATO is an excuse they use but that is all it is.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Btw, I think there are still sober minds in the Russian military leadership that will not let Mr. Putin drive their nation into a suicidal nuclear exchange.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

wallaceOct. 3  12:58 pm JST

Putin would have invaded Ukraine regardless of where NATO's borders are.

Not this time.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Russia’s military performance in Ukraine is nothing to get excited about. China’s currency/economic war against the US and for global de-dollarization is about to begin.

Laughable. The Yuen just dropped below 7 Yuen to the US Dollar and the Chinese are telling their banks to be prepared to intervene massively to buy Yuen and sell US Dollar holdings hoping to prop the value up. Historically such moves seldom work for very long. China's economy is tanking, they are forcing factories to close for lack of electricity to operate them, rivers are drying up stopping river shipping and depriving them of hydropower. Their economy is a mess and a tiny percentage of the world's commerce is conducted in the Chinese Yuen. The claim that China is about to de-Dollarize the whole world is a fantasy.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What Mr. Putin has to worry about is that NATO has the means to anticipate a nuclear attack and disrupt it. Preparations for the deployment of nuclear weapons are not something that can be fully hidden from the kind of ISR assets NATO nations possess, and NATO member intelligence is focused closely on their nuclear weapons activities. I would bet more than beers that the Russians have been notified in private that if preparations for a nuclear attack are detected then NATO forces, primarily F-35s and B-2s but also JASSM-ERs fired from non-LO platforms at stand off distances will intervene directly to destroy nuclear weapons using only conventional weapons before those nuclear weapons can be deployed. I would also bet more than beers the Russians have been told in private that should they succeed in staging a nuclear attack then NATO would respond in kind. Mr. Putin thinks his threats will force the west to back down in fear but that tactic is not going to work because NATO knows it has a high likelihood of stopping a Russian nuclear attack before it can be completed. Moreover Russia does not have the means to stop the B-2 and F-35 and they know it.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I strongly disagree. Some analysts suggest that the annexations were made to circumvent the problem of sending newly mobilized troops to those regions. By Russian law, those troops cannot be deployed outside Russia unlike those units used in the invasion. Now the restriction has been removed and they can be sent in.

That is a strong possibility. Also consider that the Russians are press-ganging draft age men from the regions just annexed into the Russian Army since they are now officially, cough cough, "Russians" and thus eligible to be drafted.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

What we are seeing is the China/Russia strategic alliance: Russia is fighting the military war, and China will fight a currency/economic war against the US-led West.

Russia’s military performance in Ukraine is nothing to get excited about. China’s currency/economic war against the US and for global de-dollarization is about to begin.

The economic war doesn’t need much from Russia or China. Most of the harm will be done by the West caused by their irresponsible money printing and the effects of the sanctions which hurt the West more than Russia.

This means that the US will be fighting military/ currency/ economic war on all fronts at the same time.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Russia's parliament declared the regions part of Russia on Saturday. The way is now clear, from Moscow's viewpoint, for a possible defensive strike if it felt the territory was under serious threat.

I strongly disagree. Some analysts suggest that the annexations were made to circumvent the problem of sending newly mobilized troops to those regions. By Russian law, those troops cannot be deployed outside Russia unlike those units used in the invasion. Now the restriction has been removed and they can be sent in.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Some truth in what Putin is saying, love him or hate him.

Pushing NATO to Russia's doorstep was not a rational move by the West. As evidenced by the events in the last 9 months.

That is not correct.

First, NATO was not "pushing" to Russia's doorstep. It was the countries on Russias doorstep that were pulling NATO closer through NATO's open door policy.

Second, NATO is a defensive alliance that was not ever a threat to Russia's existence. It was only a threat to Putin's desire to reconstitute the old Soviet Union.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

Really? Then what exactly are NATO or G7 if not a team populated by the ‘West’ for the purpose of military and economic cooperation respectively?

If you are happy to let governments speak for you go for it. Wave your little flag.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

I don’t know how many more times this needs to be said or if it will ever sink in, but this isn’t a team sport.

Really? Then what exactly are NATO or G7 if not a team populated by the ‘West’ for the purpose of military and economic cooperation respectively?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Putin believes Russia should return to something like the Soviet Union and believes Ukraine belongs to it.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

’The West’

Even Bass is blaming ‘the west’ for this conflict in another thread.

I don’t know how many more times this needs to be said or if it will ever sink in, but this isn’t a team sport.

4 ( +7 / -3 )

The West has been doing everything in their power to provoke Putin.

It's important to keep in mind that "Putin's nuclear warning" followed this statement:

"They have even resorted to the nuclear blackmail. I am referring not only to the Western-encouraged shelling of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which poses a threat of a nuclear disaster, but also to the statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction — nuclear weapons — against Russia."

-7 ( +1 / -8 )

If Putin is about to go out or if he feels he faces internal threats which will anyways make his survival impossible, he might as well want to go out with a bang.

Putin is in a corner which is not a good place for a dictator armed with nuclear weapons to be.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Putin would have invaded Ukraine regardless of where NATO's borders are.

3 ( +7 / -4 )

"In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line," Putin said in his Sept. 21 warning.

Some truth in what Putin is saying, love him or hate him.

Pushing NATO to Russia's doorstep was not a rational move by the West. As evidenced by the events in the last 9 months.

-2 ( +5 / -7 )

The sentence I read has a completely different meaning.

Instead of trying to figure out the reasoning behind Putin's motives, hopefully Western leaders can intervene before there is a need to determine what the motive was.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

He said it would be a mistake to be complacent about Putin's nuclear warnings, but that he did not think it would make sense for Putin to go nuclear to defend newly-annexed territory.

The whole situation in a single sentence, It would be irrational for Putin to use nuclear weapons, but it would be irresponsible to assume for him to act only rationally.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

President Putin has boxed himself into a corner without a clear political or diplomatic exit route.

He's the boy in a playground that's conkers are all smashed/broken and is left to twiddling with the string.

Angry and humiliated President Putin is left mulling what could have been.

This is the moment that President Putin could lash out, in a deranged mental state and commit the unthinkable.

3 ( +5 / -2 )

Send the Russian mafia some Bitcoin to solve this, or actually use those 'special forces' governments always boast about. Accidents will occur in the best-regulated Kremlins.

Protecting Putin simply because he is a politician loses its sheen if he is going to start lobbing nukes about. If he was a dog you would have put him down by now. The West is soft and he knows it. He is relying on it.

0 ( +3 / -3 )

Putin is a madman living inside a delusion bubble.

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Like we say in America ,put up or shut up

-13 ( +0 / -13 )

“a conflict which has, thus far, humbled rather than defeated a former superpower.”

Former and dwindling for generations to come after this tragedy.

”years of humiliation at the hands of an arrogant West”

Blaming ‘the west’ or ‘the left’ for your woes is a sign of mental deficiency. Things are never so black and white.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

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