Opinion
The Guardian View On Putin’s Nuclear Threats: Russia Is Losing In Ukraine

Editorial
* With 2,000 tactical warheads at his disposal, we must hope the Russian president’s warnings are tactical

As the war in Ukraine and its consequences weaken Russia’s conventional military, Vladimir Putin’s government has resorted to nuclear threats designed to project strength. Mr Putin wants to intimidate his opponents. But his strategy is failing. Instead of Ukraine’s allies backing down, they are stepping up their support. The US Congress this week approved $11bn of arms to Ukraine, three times the total military aid Washington has so far given.

The US president, Joe Biden, was right to call out Mr Putin for making “idle comments” about nuclear weapons. It is unthinkable that blunders and miscalculations would take the world to the edge of the nuclear abyss. Yet that is where the world is heading. Whereas the Cuban missile crisis lasted 13 days, Russia’s war is already into its third month. With no clear end in sight, more deadly battles look inevitable – increasing the chances of mistakes.

Mr Putin could be using nuclear rhetoric to give the appearance of being unstable. His war is illegal and immoral. His justification for starting the invasion was macabre and ludicrous. However, this may be an act. Russia’s president could be trying to back coercive diplomacy with the “madman theory” of threatening excessive force, which includes the spectre of nuclear weapons. However disagreeable this might seem, a rational Mr Putin, with 2,000 tactical nuclear warheads, is preferable to an irrational one.

The concentration of such power in one man’s hands ought to make the world sit up. Russia has few mechanisms to prevent Mr Putin resorting to nuclear weapons if he decided he had nothing to lose. In the Guardian last month, Christopher S Chivvis at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote that in war game scenarios he had taken part in, which considered what would happen if Russia hit Ukraine with nuclear weapons, the only way of de-escalation was when “clear political off-ramps and lines of communication between Moscow and Washington have remained open. In all the other games, the world is basically destroyed.”

That is why the US president has been careful not to provide Russia with a reason to go nuclear. Mr Biden made it clear that the US would not place boots on the ground, establish a no-fly zone or conduct intercontinental ballistic missile tests. What Mr Biden has shown is that conventional anti-tank and anti-aircraft technologies have reached a new level of capability, one which has rendered conventional invading ground forces – unless overwhelmingly massed – almost obsolete. Mr Biden has been shrewder than more gung-ho Democrats or their ideological soulmates found in Boris Johnson’s government.

Faced with costly military setbacks, Mr Putin has refocused Russia on tightening its hold in Ukraine’s east and south. The fighting might get worse before it gets better. Pursuing Kyiv’s objectives through relatively limited means has worked, though Russia has been able to target civilians indiscriminately. Ukrainians have every right to define their war aims. So do their Nato allies. One of their goals is not to increase the chances that the war becomes a potentially nuclear conflict. Western leaders should therefore reject provocative and escalatory requests out of hand. Nothing else could be more dangerous.

The Guardian

Putin's war in ukraine was a grave mistake.The US played him and examined his power.Fortunately enough for them, he is weak as shit, with nothing to show off except empty bragging.

Damnnn niggar

Putin doesn't know what he has put his hand into

UK newspapers always talking rubbish

Russia will win, but it would be a pyrrhic victory, and would leave them with room for a lot of self examination.

At the end, Russia is just as bad as the USA. Empire builders all of them. I hope this war teaches Nairalanders that the US, Russia, China, UK, Saudi, Iran, and all of them are not your friends, they all have interests, and if bombing Nigeria with bombs supports their interest they will do it, and with relish.

We all better wake up.

Russia hasn't even declared a full all-out war in Ukraine and yet, NATO is fearful of a nuclear war.

Russia barely talks about nuclear weapons. It talks about being able to deal with NATO if they dare get into Ukraine and then NATO starts screaming about nuclear weapons.

Lol

The Putin fan boys will call it propaganda as usual. Let's keep watching and see how it ends.

We don't want more War...Putin We want Peace

I sincerely wonder how this type of news get to the Frontpage.

If you believe the Guardian, then I have a bridge to sell you in Lagos.

The UK establishment right down to its media arm is just an absolute disgrace.

It is absolutely clear that the Russians are advancing on all fronts in the South and Eastern parts of Ukraine and the Russians (who are winning) have never threatened or even hinted at using Nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

We remember from records that the country who has used Nuclear weapons is the United States and when they were getting their asses kicked in Korea and Vietnam also threatened to use same.

The Russian position has always been consistent, which is no one will win a Nuclear war.

Perhaps @Righteousness1 @GardenofGod @HolinessForever or whatever moniker you go by these days should try and note this.

N.B. All this articles and opinion pieces from the UK media has two purposes:

1. To whip up public sentiment against the Russians by painting them in a "James Bond Villian" kind of light and thus win over public opinion for the Ukrainians.

2. To try and apply some kind of psychological pressure on the Russians to stop them from prosecuting the Special operation to the fullest.

Only the gullible will fall for their tricks.

Ukraine will surely prevail

His myopic supporters won't agree on this. They'd say it's western propaganda as usual. Before Ukraine was invaded, I rated this guy so high. He shouldn't have made that move to remain respected. Nations don't take him seriously anymore.

Propaganda as usual... Didn't waste my time to read..

All power belongs to God

I always wonder what Putin was thinking when he declared war against innocent Ukraine exercising her rights as a sovereign state..

He should have committed to study the history and asked the right questions from his dead mentor Adolf Hitler, and take a cue from there..

Historically, evil (no matter how solid and carefully planned) has never succeeded over good! So it won't happen now..

Now, there's already a problem in his own camp, and if he's not careful, he will be killed by his own people..

I noticed that when Russia suffers a major blow, their sympathisers will tag it "west propaganda", when Ukraine suffers huge loss, these same cretins say the west is trying to exaggerate and escalate things..

No matter how hard Kremlin tries, it will definitely go down for sure...

g

Wait. No be this same Ukraine wey their soldiers dey surrender en masse to Russians?

Putin na clown, threats everyday.

Movie never start
Popcorn � & Pepsi don finish
And you told me you ate before leaving the house �

Ok

Humans accumulating what will cause our extinction.

Do you really think he opened Russia's asernal for Ukraine? Bro he is literally calling US out using Ukraine as bait

VictorUSA:
Putin's war in ukraine was a grave mistake.The US played him and examined his power.Fortunately enough for them, he is weak as shit, with nothing to show off except empty bragging.

SouthWestBlood:
The Putin fan boys will call it propaganda as usual. Let's keep watching and see how it ends.

Do you know that only fools will not see this as a propaganda...

Ook

Putin made a costly mistake. He envisioned invasion of Ukraine being as it was in the olden days, when soviet army can enter one of their unions unchallenged. Maybe his invasion of Crimea emboldened him.

The bashing Russia got and is still getting from Ukraine is unprecedented, they didn't suffer this much of a loss in their invasion of Afghanistan and war in Chechen. The worst for them is that it has exposed their fabled military might to the world. As much as they have the numbers, every other thing is empty.

A renowned super power that is threatening nuke, even when it has not even been attacked. It's funny when some people here still assume superpowers to Putin. Their future disappointment will be like that of a child that realised that Santa Claus is simply a fable.

Rubbish analysis Russia wey done destroyed almost half of Ukraine infrastructure and you call it losing

Keep it coming, of course western dindinrins will wannnnk to dat…..