Can this really be happening? Sadly, the answer is yes. President Putin has just reiterated his threat to use nuclear weapons and announced that Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory will become part of the Russian Federation.
Is nuclear weapon use likely or certain? No, not by any means, and we should speak with a sense of proportion and care. Putin wants us to be frightened. But we also need to stop burying our heads in the sand, as we have done with Russia for too long. To minimise the chances of nuclear use – tactical or strategic – we must assume that the threat is real and that at some point, probably as Russian troops face major collapse in south-east Ukraine over the next six to nine months, Putin will either use or come close to using tactical nuclear weapons. At every point he has chosen to escalate and increase risk. There is no sign that he will do anything different. Neither is there any evidence of his ill health or that he will be removed from office.
We therefore need to start thinking through how we deflect Russia from a course of action that will be catastrophic for it and the world. In short, we need to maximise the chance of avoiding tactical use that will kill and irradiate thousands and risk the escalation of a war that will kill millions.
Putin cannot or will not see that it is he who is destroying his country
So what does that planning look like? It could involve wargaming options to understand what the military calls Decision Points – critical opportunities to shape and influence Russian actions. It should include reassuring our populations that this threat is being taken seriously and that work is being conducted to minimise the risk. It should encompass working with China and India to press Russia to keep its warfare conventional. Indeed, China, regardless of what we think of it, may prove to be a critical player in holding back Putin from his worst instincts. Russia’s military and energy partners could also be used. We need a potentially global response now to shape Russian behaviour in the months ahead.
If we continue to say, ‘it’s a bluff’, we remain unprepared. We will continue to chase after events, as we have done since Putin declared the New Cold War back in 2007 which our political classes largely ignored, even after the 2008 invasion of Georgia and the 2014 invasion of Ukraine.
Having lived in the USSR when it was collapsing, I don’t trust conventional wisdom when dealing with Russia. Almost all those who say Putin won’t use nukes are western commentators and politicians. Those who say Russia will use them are Russian commentators and the Russian leader himself, on at least two occasions. Who are we going to believe, western commentators or the Russian president and his media acolytes?
Britain should also be under no illusion that we are part of this war, for which the Russian president has been preparing for years. President Putin and his security elites around him do not see western states as distant observers. To Russians, Putin presents the Ukraine conflict as a war against Nato which is being fought in Ukraine. We are the aggressors, we are the enemy, because we, working with Kyiv ‘Nazis’, have ‘taken’ Ukraine from Russia. Not only that, but in Putin’s view of the world the US and Nato brought down the USSR and we are planning the same for Mother Russia. Putin cannot or will not see that it is he who is destroying his country.
I returned from leading a British parliamentary delegation to Kyiv last week. There is no doubt of the determination of Ukrainians to have their own state and defend it. The more authoritarian, dangerous and frankly fascistic the Russia state becomes, the more Ukrainians see their future outside Russia’s influence. They will fight, regardless of whether we arm them or not.
We met President Zelensky as Russia’s positions in Kharkiv, north-east Ukraine, were collapsing. He spoke with the emotional intensity and energy which has become his hallmark. Last week heralded a new phase of this conflict. Russian troops are now on the defensive; Ukraine’s are on the offensive. There is a long way to go in this war, but Ukrainians now see a route to victory.
President Putin’s latest moves are those of a leader facing conventional defeat in the battlefield. Mobilisation of Russia’s reserves, the threat of nuclear weapon use and the annexation of territory are all actions designed to shore up a collapsing war effort. They are also designed to force the West to stop supplying Ukraine. That link between the West and Ukraine, financial, political and military, is Ukraine’s weak point. It is in, military terms, its ‘centre of gravity’. If Putin can break that link, he can still win. Hence, in part, the nuclear threat.
We can no longer afford to ignore the dark heart of the Russian state, as we have since 2007. We can no longer afford to mitigate Russian action. If western states had armed Ukraine, if Germany had weaned itself off Russian gas, we might possibly have prevented this war. Those days are long gone. Ukrainians now have a right to defend their state. But we must understand the dangers. To avoid the risk of nuclear weapon use and even nuclear war, western leaders have to accept it is now possible, and plan against it.
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