West must hold its nerve in face of Putin’s nuclear sabre rattling… Vlad knows he’s in trouble, says ex-Nato chief

A PREVIOUS As military leaders speculated about what Russian despot Vladimir Putin may do next, the head of NATO said Tuesday that the world was in a perilous time.

A distinguished British Army leader named Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon urged the West to remain calm and claimed the rogue president was using nuclear hyperbole because he was having problems.

He claimed that following a week of escalation in which a potent Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile was fired at Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, Putin now had few options.

Deputy Chief of the Defense Staff Lieutenant General Sir Rob Magowan told MPs that if the British Army was asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight after Ukrainian leaders broke ranks to argue that World War Three had begun.

On Sunday, however, Mr. de Bretton-Gordon told The Sun that nuclear Armageddon is not a possibility. That will not take place. Even after being shot on Ukraine this week, the hypersonic missile is still a test weapon.

Putin is also incapable of firing a tactical nuclear missile. These are 500-kilometer-range Iskander missiles.

Now that Ukraine has US ATACMSs and Storm Shadow missiles manufactured in the UK, they may destroy them.

That is the issue that Western leaders are currently facing, but I don’t think NATO will stand by and let Putin launch a nuclear missile.

They are aware that they cannot err on this.

Everyone is watching to see what Putin will do next.

He is armed with a fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can deliver nuclear weapons.

He may strike NATO nations like Poland and the Ukrainian battlefield with short-range nuclear weapons.

The 65-foot Poseidon underwater nuclear bomb, which has a 10,000-kilometer range and is strong enough to produce a 1,500-foot wave of radioactive seawater that could submerge Britain, is his most horrifying alternative.

Nevertheless, chemical weapons specialist Mr. de Bretton-Gordon urged the West to maintain its resolve.

Putin is in a challenging situation, he stated.

He knows he’s in trouble, which is why he’s acting so aggressively.

The 50,000 North Korean and Russian soldiers at Kurskare are sitting ducks. They are within range of the ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles and in assembly sites.

The scenario is still the same; whomever controls Kursk at Christmas will have the advantage in any peace negotiations, notwithstanding the increased amount of Moscow’s rhetoric.

Kursk is a powerful negotiating tool. For the Russians, it is sacred territory and the key to their mentality. In 1943, the Nazis were vanquished there.

Of sure, this is a risky time. People are terrified. However, Putin’s alternatives are limited as long as the West’s commitment is strong.

Acts of sabotage in the grey area, which are debatable and unlikely to constitute the catalyst for conflict, will surely rise in the coming days. The Cold War nuclear language will also be used, but the Russians are already under a lot of strain. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers have been lost.

If I were Joe Biden or Sir Keir StarmerorI would advise Putin that the overwhelming conventional response would end his special military operation if he were to successfully launch a tactical nuclear weapon.

After firing the Oreshnik missile on Dnipro in retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on Russia using Storm Shadows and long-range ATACMS, Putin has pledged to deploy it in combat once again.

“There are things that Russia does to harm Ukraine, but this was sending a message to us as Ukraine’s international supporters,” stated Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the RUSI think tank.

“Do you really want to play chicken with us when we have so many weapons like this?” they asked.

Given our own shortcomings in missile defense and the scarcity of intermediate-range missiles, they were deliberately targeting Europe.

Another issue, he said, was sabotage.

Two alleged attempts to detonate explosives on cargo planes headed for North America this month are attributed to Russia.

One caught fire at a German courier hub, while the other caught fire at a Birmingham warehouse.

Putin has also softened Russia’s nuclear doctrine, stating that a non-nuclear state attack will be considered a joint attack if it is supported by a nuclear power.

Since invading Ukraine, he has set nuclear red lines on multiple occasions, all of which the West has crossed.

Leaders around the world need to determine whether they are ready to take another chance.

Donald Tuskwarned, the prime minister of Poland, stated that there is a real and severe threat from international violence.