Here we go again: Russian President Vladimir Putin is having another one of his nuclear temper tantrums.
Threatening nuclear armageddon has become a way of life for Mad Vlad.
This time, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, it is due to “provocative statements and threats by certain Western officials.”
Translation: Putin is fearful that recent statements from French President Emmanuel Macron on potentially sending troops to Ukraine, and British Foreign Minister David Cameron’s green-lighting Ukrainian use of UK weapons inside of Russia, will mean the end of his “special military operation.”
Putin knows that the sanctuary being afforded to Russian forces by the Biden administration is his primary advantage over NATO-backed Ukraine.
The Kremlin can’t fight, let alone win, a fair fight.
So Putin is desperate to keep playing with a stacked deck — and inexplicably, President Biden keeps letting Moscow win with it.
Enough is enough.
Tuesday’s Russian nuclear drill near the Ukrainian border is simply Kabuki theater gone nuclear — and tactical at that.
Russia’s strategic nukes capable of hitting Washington, Paris or London remain sheathed.
Iskander and Kinzhal missiles are Putin’s theatrical props; Western leaders, particularly Biden, are the intended audience.
We’ve seen this movie directed by Putin and his cronies before.
And its plot is getting old — and indeed tiresome.
Earlier this month, Ukraine’s northern neighbor Belarus conducted its own tactical nuclear drill showing off Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s Iskanders and Su-25 fighter-bomber jets as they maneuvered alongside Russian forces.
The intent of this exercise was not just to threaten Ukraine; it was a message aimed at Poland and the Baltic States as well.
It is time to see through this: Putin is unlikely to start a nuclear World War III no matter how bad it gets in Ukraine — even if he ends up losing Crimea.
Biden and his national security team, especially Jake Sullivan, need to transcend this escalation fear.
They are being played by Moscow.
And, as abundantly evidenced by the Biden administration’s schizophrenia regarding Ukrainian use of American weapons such as ATACMS inside of Russia, they are falling for it.
The latest switcheroo pulled by Biden & Co. came just last week: On May 15, during a visit to Kyiv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States was not stopping Ukraine from using American-made weapons on targets in Russian territory.
The next day, the Pentagon pushed back as Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh denied US policy had changed.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin underscored this point on Monday, during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Washington, saying: “We expect them to continue using the provided weapons on targets in Ukraine.”
Huh?
Abbott and Costello’s classic “Who’s on First?” baseball routine is easier to understand than this nonsensical doubletalk coming out of Biden’s White House: Even if it is intended as strategic ambiguity, it is fooling no one.
Kyiv, as yet, has not used ATACMS to interdict Russian forces massing inside of Russia along the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv Oblast: It is a huge reason why the Kremlin was able to easily penetrate up to six miles inside of Ukraine north of Kharkiv City and Vovchansk to the east when Moscow’s counteroffensive began on May 10.
It does not matter who is on first in this nuclear game of bluff — what matters is that Biden, glued to the dugout, is losing it at the expense of Ukrainian lives.
Putin has been reveling in his nuclear tantrums since his three-day tour to Ukraine went south in March 2022.
Nearly nightly, his chief propagandists, including Olga Skabeyeva and Vladimir Solovyov, have fantasized on Russian state television about which Western city should be nuked first — including even events like Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
Moscow has deployed this nuclear bluff in numerous ways: Putin created the equivalent of a Nuclear Force Z by weaponizing Ukraine’s nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia — and the Kremlin’s May 16 launch of an anti-satellite weapon, potentially armed with nuclear capabilities, was likely intended as an exclamation mark to his latest series of nuclear threats.
Yet that is as far as Russia has gone.
Putin knows he cannot win a nuclear war — not with tactical nukes, strategic ones, or even through an environmental disaster along the lines of a Chernobyl.
NATO has nukes as well and would respond in kind.
Biden must stop falling for Putin’s nuclear tantrums. More will follow.
Recognize them for what they are: signs of Russian weakness and desperation. And get on with winning the war in Ukraine.
Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer. Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy.