"Putin may use nuclear weapons": Russia prepares for escalation

Russia is preparing for a dramatic escalation in the war against Ukraine, reports the Bloomberg website tonight (between Wednesday and Thursday) based on sources in the country. The site adds that a growing number of officials in Russia think that Russian President Vladimir Putin may eventually choose to use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a last resort.

The report comes at the end of a week full of signs of Russian preparation for the continuation of the war. On Sunday, the American newspaper "The Wall Street Journal" reported, based on Western intelligence sources, that Russia is preparing for the possibility of another wave of mobilization for the army, and that preparation exercises for such a move are taking place across the country.

On Tuesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe landed in Moscow for an unusual flash visit, the content of which was not clarified, but commentators raised the possibility that he delivered a warning to the Kremlin not to escalate its actions. At the beginning of the month, a drone carrying an explosive device was found at Leipzig airport, which only failed to explode due to a malfunction, and last week a weapons cache attributed to Moscow was exposed in a forest near Berlin. At the same time, the British Prime Minister was warned to prepare for a "direct response" from Vladimir Putin, and security officials in the kingdom raised the alert level.

According to the sources, at this stage, Moscow is considering intensifying conventional ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, including the center of the capital, and on infrastructure targets in other Ukrainian cities. These attacks claim the lives of Ukrainian citizens every night.

According to them, all negotiation channels have effectively collapsed and both sides have returned to the starting point, and they estimate that Vladimir Putin will not end the war under the economic pressure of sanctions and Ukrainian attacks on refineries and logistics systems in Russia. The Kremlin presents the Ukrainian attacks as attacks by NATO countries, due to the assistance to the country in weapons and intelligence.

Vladimir Putin himself hinted at what is to come when he said in an interview published on Saturday that Ukraine opened a "Pandora's box" in its successful campaign against the Russian fuel industry and logistics in the country. He threatened that Russia would fight back in the most sensitive sectors of the Ukrainian economy.

According to sources close to the Kremlin, the spiral of escalation is leading more and more officials in Russia to the conclusion that Vladimir Putin may eventually choose tactical nuclear weapons as a last resort. Recently, the discourse of hawks pushing for such a step has increased in Moscow, and in these circles, an extreme response is seen as possible, because the only thing worse for Vladimir Putin than continuing the war is losing it.

This is not the first time the Kremlin has brandished the nuclear threat to deter the West from supporting Ukraine, whether through leaks to the Western media, exercises of its strategic forces, or the rhetoric of senior officials in the country. Bloomberg notes that at this stage there are no signs that Russia is actually preparing to use nuclear weapons.

According to the report, Russia's key partners, including China and India, have sharply warned Vladimir Putin against such a step. Volodymyr Zelensky said in a briefing to reporters in July that China made it clear to Russia that it must not even consider using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, and a senior European official claimed that Chinese officials conveyed the message to Moscow. Next week, Vladimir Putin is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Kyrgyzstan.

On the other hand, the director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin, Alexander Gabuev, believes that the risk of Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons remains extremely low. According to him, the military effectiveness of such weapons on a dispersed battlefield like today's is limited, while the political cost of breaking the nuclear taboo would be high. "As long as Moscow has room to escalate with conventional weapons, including intensifying missile attacks, it has no real incentive to cross the nuclear threshold," he said.

Another assessment was voiced by Fiona Hill, a senior national security advisor in three American administrations and a researcher at the Brookings Institution. According to her, Vladimir Putin does not see a determined opponent in front of him, and he has plenty of ways to wear down Western countries. Hill recalled that the Biden administration once made it clear to Russia that the USA would respond with a massive conventional response if nuclear weapons were used, but it is doubtful whether Donald Trump will issue a similar warning. According to her, Vladimir Putin is testing how far he can go.

The Ukrainian campaign against the Russian economic infrastructure has become a dramatic challenge for Moscow in recent months, and the Kremlin is struggling to find an answer to it. The attacks on refineries have led to a fuel shortage felt throughout Russia, huge queues at gas stations, and rationing of its sale. At the same time, the attacks on the warehouses of e-commerce giants caused billions of dollars in damage to logistics systems.

On the other side, Russian missile attacks have exposed Kyiv's chronic shortage of interceptors, and Ukraine is almost defenseless against them. Volodymyr Zelensky said this month that his country is expected to receive only 264 interceptors this year, compared to 364 last year and 675 in 2023, while Russia aims to reach production of up to 1,300 ballistic missiles per year and also receives extensive support from North Korea. The fear in Kyiv now is of widespread damage to the heating and electricity infrastructure in the country during the winter.