Does the risk of downfall lead Putin to some desperate and unwanted measures (the nuclear threat)?
One thing’s for sure: the most dangerous aspect of the current war is obvious: Russia is still the heir of the Soviet Union’s nuclear-armed power, unlike Ukraine, which renounced its Soviet nukes in return for a security guarantee that proved to be worthless in the end.
Putin knows very well that his ace is to threaten everybody with nuclear weapons. Even before he launched his invasion, he said that “anyone who tries to interfere with us, should know that Russia’s response will be immediate and will lead to such consequences that you have never experienced in your entire history.”
He then added that Russia is STILL “one of the most powerful nuclear weapons”. And as the war was underway, he ordered for the nuclear forces to be put on a “special regime of combat duty” a.k.a. on HIGH ALERT.
