With no way of escaping,“suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me,” he famously related in his official biography. “I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the word ‘cornered’.”
IllustrationDionne Gain
Is Vladimir Putin the cornered rat in the war against Ukraine? If so,is he about to lash out with a level of atomic violence that?
His troops have suffered embarrassing setbacks. Rather than admit any failures,he’s sought to intensify his invasion. Last week,he announced. He threatened to use nuclear weapons with this televised statement:“In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people,we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us.” Looking directly into the camera,he added meaningfully:“This is not a bluff.”
Hold on. Is there actually any “threat to the territorial integrity of our country”,meaning Russia? No. But Putin is busy redrawing the map to make it so. He called for immediate referenda in four areas of Ukraine currently held by Russian troops so that the inhabitants can vote to declare their regions to be part of Russia.
Will they do so? They have no choice,it seems:“The referendum is taking place in the occupied city of Kherson under the muzzle of an automatic rifle,” reported Galina Luhova,head of the Kherson City Military Administration,who left the occupied area but says she has been in contact with residents.
Witnesses report that armed Russian soldiers are going door to door carrying mobile ballot boxes and demanding that people cast their votes on the spot. The voting is supposed to finish on Tuesday.
The point of these concocted acts of “self-determination” is to strengthen Moscow’s claims over occupied Ukrainian land. The potency of such a move is that it’d bring the territories within
The doctrine says that Russia reserves the right to use nuclear arms “in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons,when the very existence of the state is put under threat”.
OK,so that’s pretty troubling. But why would he say “this is not a bluff”? Doesn’t that just draw attention to the fact that he’s bluffed repeatedly about launching a nuclear attack on the West since he began the invasion in February? Surely,this is just another bluff?
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he is not bluffing over the use of nuclear weapons.AP
Perhaps. But the potential harm is so extreme that Western governments are not leaving it to chance. The US National Security Adviser,Jake Sullivan,on the weekend said that Putin’s nuclear threats are “a matter that we have to take deadly seriously”.
“We have communicated directly,privately at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia,that the US and our allies will respond decisively,and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail.”
Other NATO governments reportedly have delivered similarly stern warnings to the Kremlin.
What do independent analysts think? Paul Dibb spent his long career in intelligence and analysis for the Australian government in intimate study of the USSR,and then the Russian Federation. Now professor emeritus of strategic studies at ANU,the hard-headed Dibb has bad news and good about Putin’s likely intentions.
The bad news:“If push comes to shove,there is a real risk that he will bring the whole pack of cards down on his head. He will not be humiliated,” by accepting defeat,Dibb tells me.
“What matters is his pride and ego. What matters most to him is what record of history he delivers for holy mother Russia.”. It would be foolish to underestimate him again,Dibb says.
What would it take for Putin to detonate a nuclear weapon against Ukraine? “If it’s proven,in his mind,that in conventional war he will lose and lose radically to Ukraine.”
And if,as analysts conjecture,he uses a “tactical” nuclear weapon,a smaller bomb designed to use on a battlefield rather than a “strategic” one for use against a city,Dibb doesn’t think he would stop there:“If he uses a tactical nuke,and if,then,the game is on,I don’t see him quitting.”
Putin knows the risks to Russia. Even the risks of using a smaller,tactical weapon. He touched on it himself in his broadcast address last week. In warning NATO against using atomic weapons,the Russian dictator said:“Those who are using nuclear blackmail against us should know that the prevailing wind can turn around.” Russia itself would face precisely this risk – that radioactive fallout from a Russian bomb would end up in Russia.
As for strategic nuclear weapons,“I presume the advice Putin gets from the military is the same advice it gave in the Soviet Union,that it would be the end of Russia and the end of much of Europe.”
And the good news? Dibb doesn’t think Putin is cornered. “Not yet. He’s suffered significant tactical setback. If that were repeated,and he was booted out of the territory Russia still holds – Luhansk,Donetsk and,worse,Crimea,he would feel cornered,and then we’d face a really dangerous lashing out.”
Of course,as Dibb freely acknowledges,he could be wrong. Like most analysts including the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs,Mark Milley,he expected Russia would conquer Kyiv within 72 hours. And analysis of Putin’s own inner thoughts is even more fraught.
In fact,maybe we’re misreading the metaphor of the cornered rat. So far,it’s not Russia but Ukraine that’s behaved like a cornered rat,fighting with desperate determination against all odds. In Putin’s story,the rat won.
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