I’m ex-CIA agent – nuke sabre-rattling Putin is master manipulator trying to bluff the West… but threat is very real

According to a former CIA agent, Vladimir Putin is a skilled manipulator who is attempting to deceive the West into giving in.

David McCloskey, a veteran intelligence analyst, cautioned that Putin’s threats have a “real impact” whether or not they are grounded in reality.

It occurs after the Russian commander fired a new hypersonic missile at Ukraine this week and threatened to attack US and British sites.

The remarks were a direct reaction to Ukraine’s employment of British Storm Shadow missiles and US-made ATACMS.

According to Mr. McCloskey, who joined the CIA at the age of 19 and worked for eight years in field stations in the Middle East, Putin is skilled at using the threat of weapons to further his objectives.

“I’m not sure how representative it is, but there’s a very vocal group in the United States that take World War Three sabre-rattling seriously,” he told The Sun.

“They are using it as part of a larger argument to basically detach us from the Ukrainian conclusion.

“You can conclude that Putin and others close to him have repeatedly bluffed this based on their statements during the crisis.

“I believe that nearly everything Putin says can have a genuine political influence without necessarily being grounded in reality.

“Putin is a former KGB man, he’s a master manipulator, and he knows how to use the threat of nuclear weapons as part of that.”

He was talking in advance of the launch of his brand-new podcast, The Rest is Classified, featuring Gordon Corera, a BBC security correspondent and author of espionage.

According to Mr. Corera, the US, Russia, and NATO do not want a conflict or the use of nuclear weapons.

However, he claimed that with Ukraine firing US and British missiles at Russia this week, “we’ve moved up the ladder” toward a world war.

“On the one hand, I would have been shocked and said that suggests we’re on the verge of war if you had told me a few years ago that Russia is conducting sabotage operations throughout Europe and that American missiles are being fired into Russian territory,” Mr. Corera continued.

“But the truth is that neither Russia nor the US or NATO want a conflict or for it to turn nuclear because that would not be in Russia’s best interests.

“There is a lot of discussion about Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons to pressure us into giving up.

Nevertheless, there is always a chance that things could spiral out of control and that each party will feel the need to escalate.

“And all of a sudden, you reach a point that is almost conflictual and where neither party wants to be.

“And I think we’ve, you know, we’ve moved up the ladder quite steadily over the last couple of years of escalation.”

It occurs as speculation about Putin’s poor health has persisted since the start of the conflict in Ukraine.

This week, suspicions were raised once further after it was claimed that the Kremlin had released multiple recordings of the tyrant’s talks with other Russian officials.

The Russian emperor has been known to travel with a cancer doctor in his entourage, as it was previously believed that he had cancer.

When his hand was observed shaking and he gripped desks or chairs tightly, there were also rumors of early-stage Parkinson’s disease a few years back.

“Wishful thinking” is what Mr. Corera claims worries over the Russian leader’s health are frequently.

Additionally, he noted that the conflict and escalating tensions do not necessarily stop with Putin’s defeat.

According to the author: “People discuss how a minor symptom could be a clue that he’s not feeling well.

However, nothing I’ve seen or heard indicates that he isn’t. Putin is in charge right now, so I believe we need to deal with him as he is.

He has been around for a long time, but it’s unclear how long.

Even if he went, I don’t think that would necessarily indicate that Russia would take a different course.

“You don’t know that it wouldn’t be a (Yevgeny) Prigozhin or someone who is potentially more unstable who could take his place.”

His remarks follow Putin’s Friday night demand for a secret summit following his warning to the United Kingdom.

He had issued the following warning in a televised speech this week: “Russia believes it has the right to use weapons against military installations of nations that allow the use of their weapons against Russia.

“Since this moment, as we have underscored repeatedly, the conflict in Ukraine, provoked by the West, has acquired elements of global nature.”

Putin went on to say: “In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.”

He cautioned that nations that have let Kyiv to use their missiles to attack Russia could be targeted by the weapon, which he claims is “impossible” to neutralize.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant General Rob Magowan boldly said that Britain will be prepared to battle in front of the House of Commons defense committee.

Britain’s troops would be prepared to fight their Russian counterparts “tonight” if crazed Vladimir Putin invaded another country in Eastern Europe, according to the military chief.

“If the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight,” the deputy chief of the British military staff said the committee.

“I don’t think anybody in this room should be under any illusion that if the Russians invaded Eastern Europe tonight, then we would meet them in that fight.”