Russian brute Vladimir Putin could still use nuclear weapons in Ukraine unless the West issues him an urgent warning, a leading Russia expert has warned.
To stop this "death cult" act, Putin needs to be told what the apocalyptic consequences to Russia would be if he nuked Ukraine, Keir Giles, a senior consulting fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House said in his new report.
The warmonger has continually engaged in nuclear sabre-rattling to try to warn the West off from sending increased military aid to Ukraine.
In February he made his most direct threat after he called Germany part of “the aggression of the collective West" which Russia will fight back against.
The warmonger then said they will not send tanks to the border but instead will respond with something more firm — insinuating a nuclear threat.
He concluded by saying “this is not a bluff” as he announced a mass mobilisation.
Nuclear bombers including the Tu-95 Bear and Tu-160 are regularly filmed carrying out drills while Russia frequently boasts about the prowess of its Satan-2 nuclear missile.
In his report, Giles says Russia’s constant nuclear intimidation has so far delivered success despite the chances of Putin actually using weapons remaining slim, they cannot be completely excluded.
"A nuclear strike could be ordered if there is no longer any possibility of claiming conventional victory and a powerful destructive attack on Ukraine is perceived as the only means of avoiding admission of a clear defeat," he says.
He continues: “One or more nuclear strikes could form part of a scorched earth response intended simply to cause misery and destruction in Ukraine in recognition of Russian failure to conquer it.
“The rationale being that if Russia can’t have Ukraine, nobody can.
“This would mirror, on a vastly greater scale, the behaviour of individual Russian soldiers and units when presented with the reality of life in Ukraine, where rather than aspiring to it themselves, they seek to destroy it.”
This is because “western nuclear powers have given Moscow grounds for confidence that there would not be retaliation in kind” - a situation which needs to be “urgently revised”.
He says Putin's comments about nuclear war have “disturbing aspects of Russia's death cult and the idea that a ‘purifying apocalypse’ is something to be embraced."
The author of books on Russia said that Western powers were scrambling to appease Moscow based on just the threat of invasion.
He continues: "But Putin was intent on invading anyway regardless of whether this was seen outside the Kremlin as a rational step or not.
“In short, the argument that Russia would not use nuclear weapons because it would clearly not be in Russia’s interest to do so falls down on the example, once again, of the invasion of Ukraine.”
