Vasily Kashin. whose specialty at Moscow's Higher School of Economics is military and political issues, said in a phone interview with The NY Times that "We are passing a point of no return [today]. After this, we will not be able to refrain from defending these territories with all means, including nuclear weapons."
"These territories" are, of course, the four Ukrainian provinces that Vladimir Putin — in what the Kremlin is describing as an "elaborate," "voluminous" speech — is formally annexing today. (All that remains is for the Russian parliament to rubber stamp his formality next week.) "He thinks he can win," says Andrei Kolesnikov at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "He is provoking an escalation of the war, transferring it to some new status."
The "new status" shall be the daily and very real prospect of detonated Russian nuclear weapons over Ukrainian territory now rendered Russia's sovereign territory, in which the West is provisioning Ukraine — now the belligerent "outsider" — with advanced armaments. Thus Putin can frame the war's status as one of Western aggression toward Russia's territorial integrity, which, under the Federation's nuclear doctrine, permits defense by nukes.
"Unipolar hegemony is inexorably collapsing," said Putin to his security council in publicly televised remarks. "This is an objective reality that the West categorically refuses to accept." In its fight, all shall soon be well for Russia, since he added that "All mistakes must be corrected and prevented from happening in the future. You need to figure all this out — without fuss, calmly but quickly, in detail and thoroughly." If that fails ...
Meanwhile, the Russian dictator's homecoming gift to the now-Russian people in the engulfed territories was a series of mass-murdering strikes overnight and into Friday morning. The deadliest was in the Zaporizhzhia province, where a rocket attack killed at least 25. "All were civilians," said the provincial governor. They were lined up at a checkpoint in cars and at a bus stop, waiting to enter Russian-occupied territory to deliver humanitarian aid. Another strike hit residential areas in Mykolaiv, killing at least three.
Nevertheless, Russian state news media reported this week that indigenous support for Putin's territorial theft via annexation was nothing less than magnificent. Tass released the figures: in Zaporizhzhia, 92.68% voted in favor of returning to the motherland; in Kherson, 86%; and 93.95% in Donetsk and 98.53% in Luhansk. The decimal amounts are meant to convey Russia's meticulous and conscientious counting of the votes.
On the other hand, trouble is brewing back home. A poll released yesterday by Moscow's independent Levada Center showed that 56% of Russians are now "very alarmed" by what's happening in Ukraine, up from 37% last month and before Putin's "partial mobilization." When asked how they felt about the new draft order, 47% answered with "anxiety, fear, horror." Only 27% said they were proud.
While Putin is testing what he genuinely believes is the hegemonic will of the West, within days his own will shall be tested — his willingness, that is, to deploy nuclear weapons in the Donetsk province. Ukraine, undeterred by the dictator's threats, is gearing up for a fresh offensive on the Russian-held city of Lyman, an important logistics center whose Ukrainian capture would open a path to retaking large parts of the neighboring province of Luhansk.
Putin simply cannot afford another counteroffensive loss, this time in the Donbas and one equivalent in scope and ruinous public relations to his territorial loss in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. His ego would be irreparably wounded and he'd be toppled from power. He'll do anything to prevent these inevitabilities. Given his army's deteriorated physical condition coupled with bottomed-out morale, this means, perforce, Putin's resort to a nuclear strike.
It might be that he will fall from power beforehand. His military may refuse to carry out such an order, seeing it for the madness it is and subsequently Russia's impossible refooting within a postwar global order. But a nuclear Putin diktat is coming. The world can count on it.