Column: Putin’s threat of a nuclear strike on Ukraine may not be a bluff. What do we do now?
LA TimesRussian President Vladimir Putin speaks Friday during a ceremony at the Kremlin to formally annex four regions of Ukraine. “He’s losing on the battlefield, so he’s trying to intimidate Ukraine and the West into giving up.” “If Putin faces the imminent prospect of losing the war, he’s likely to use nuclear weapons before being defeated,” warned Matthew Kroenig of the Atlantic Council, a former Pentagon strategist. Instead, he’s threatening to use some of the estimated 2,000 “tactical nuclear weapons” that Russia has stockpiled for battlefield use — smaller warheads, but potentially devastating. “Any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia,” Jake Sullivan, President Biden’s national security advisor, said last week. “We’re also determined that this war not expand.” Or, as Biden has put it more bluntly, “We’re trying to avoid World War III.” A Russian nuclear strike on Ukraine would inevitably bring World War III a step closer.