IAN BREMMER: Could a nuclear weapon against Ukraine offer Putin a way out?
At what point do all the defeats, bluffs called and humiliations lead Vladimir Putin to think the unthinkable?
Will Russia use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine? It’s a question Western intelligence services are working on around the clock and that Western leaders are carefully considering. President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia reserves the right. As a result, even when he appears to talk down the possibility, the risk that we’re closer to nuclear confrontation than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis becomes an inescapable reality.
On the one hand, Putin has few good options for winning his war. His military has demonstrated over the past nine months that it’s incapable of achieving the objectives their leader has laid out. Russian troops weren’t properly prepared for this conflict, their weapons are old and defective, the Ukrainians have fought back effectively, the West has armed and financed Ukraine’s government and military, and Russian morale is unsurprisingly low as a result. Russian troops may be able to defend some of the ground they took in the first weeks o...
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