Pentagon officials estimated today (Sunday) that due to Russia’s inability to win on the battlefield, some Russian military analysts see the possibility of detonating nuclear weapons in the Black Sea region, even against Ukrainian military bases.
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In doing so, senior Washington officials estimate that Russian President Putin clearly sees the threat of his nuclear arsenal as a way to create fear and perhaps restore respect for Russia’s power. More importantly, he may see the threat of releasing some of his stockpile of some 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons in the form of low-yield warheads as a means of obtaining the concessions he wants in future negotiations with Ukraine.
However, the same sources say the likelihood of Putin using nuclear weapons remains low, and have seen no evidence that he is moving any of his nuclear weapons to prepare for possible use. It is also claimed that in secret conversations senior officials in the US government suggested that if Russia detonated a nuclear weapon on Ukrainian soil, the options would be to cut Russia off from the world economy, or there would be some kind of military response implemented by the Ukrainians.
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In addition, the Pentagon claims that the coming weeks will be particularly critical, when the estimates are that Putin’s dramatic steps may soon be a sabotage event in Europe, an attack on energy infrastructure in Ukraine or a focus on the elimination of senior officials in Kiev.
As you may recall, over the weekend, Putin announced to the parliament in his country his plan to annex four districts in Ukraine in a speech to the nation, saying that “Citizens of Russia, citizens of Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Donetsk, there is a principle that appears in the UN Constitution: the right to self-determination. Citizens of those regions have a basic right to self-determination. This is our land. The victims of the horrifying terror of the Ukrainian regime sitting in Kiev paid with their lives for the right of those regions to return to Russia.”
A few days earlier, the Russian president warned the West and said that he wanted to “protect” Russian territories and warned that his country would use “all the means” at its disposal, apparently a hint to the use of its nuclear weapons. Putin emphasized that his goal is to “liberate” the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, noted that Russia has “many weapons” that it could use in response to a “threat from the West” and clarified: “This is not a bluff.”