Nuclear drills, threats to Western capitals… and then a desperate peace offer: military experts explain why agitated Putin has reached his ‘peak’ in Ukraine… and how the tide on the front could soon turn against he

Vladimir Putin has stepped up rhetoric about nuclear war and redoubled his threats to the West in recent months, even as Russian troop losses have skyrocketed.

Here, retired military intelligence officer Colonel Jonathan Sweet and foreign policy writer Mark Toth argue that the Russian president’s furious escalation indicates that he may have reached his “peak” in Ukraine.

Experts discuss what the West and kyiv should do to take advantage of Putin’s moment of “weakness” in order to forever change the situation on the front line against his invading forces.

How do you spell despair in the Kremlin?

CLIMBING.

It comes in the form of tests for the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons, renewed threats by state media to attack Western capitals with nuclear weapons, relocation of nuclear weapons to Belarus, reminding the West how many nuclear weapons are in Kaliningrad and threatening to attack NATO airfields. where Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly F-16s.

Now there is a second sign of desperation.

Last Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to stop hostilities and begin negotiations with Ukraine to end the war. Their conditions? kyiv must withdraw troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and give up plans to join NATO.

That’s not gonna happen.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky summarily rejected Putin’s offer. In an official statement, he called it “absurd,” adding: “Russia’s plans are not for peace, but for the continuation of the war, the occupation of Ukraine, the destruction of the Ukrainian people and further aggression in Europe.” “.

As Dzhokhar Dudayev, Chechen politician, statesman and military leader of Russia’s Chechen independence movement of the 1990s, once said: “Russia always offers negotiations when it is in difficulties, when plans fall apart, to buy time, to regroup, to correct mistakes, Find a weak point and then attack again with renewed strength.

That describes Putin’s situation. The Russian military is fighting in eastern Ukraine and Crimea and, as such, Putin’s potential self-serving ceasefire offer is not made from a position of strength; rather, weakness, and neither the United States, NATO nor Ukraine believe it.

Putin’s harsh words were probably designed to influence only one audience: Russian citizens living in Moscow and St. Petersburg. It has peaked and understands it is only a matter of time before President Joe Biden bows to pressure from NATO member states and Zelensky and authorizes ATACMS strikes against Russian forces massing and posing a threat to Ukraine from anywhere on Russian territory. side of the border.

Western leaders are finally waking up to the fact that the Kremlin is intentionally arming Ukrainian civilians. To put an end to it, kyiv must receive the green light from NATO to intercept and destroy weapons systems that fire ballistic missiles, drones and artillery at Ukrainian population centers and critical energy infrastructure, and do so regardless of point of origin.

Aside from active NATO intervention, there is nothing Putin feared more than Washington and Brussels authorizing the Ukrainian military to carry out self-defense attacks against targets they consider to present an imminent threat to Ukraine using whatever weapons systems the United States provides them. United States and NATO. Putin knows that he would change the rules of the game, and that he could neither win it easily nor counter it militarily.

The Russian Spring offensive in the Kharkiv region is decisive. Biden’s limited authorization of US-made weapons for use by the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had an immediate and devastating effect.

A NATO official described the casualties as “astronomical” after the Kremlin launched its attack on May 10 with as many as 30,000 troops. The NATO official added that “Russia probably suffered losses of almost 1,000 people per day in May.” According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russian losses during the offensive were a staggering eight times higher than those suffered by the AFU.

Russian soldiers are beginning to surrender or be captured en masse again. Last week, more than 24 people surrendered at Ukraine’s third assault bridge after a failed attack on a Ukrainian chemical factory in Vovchansk. The previous week, the Khortytsia Regional Command reported that more than 60 Russian soldiers had been captured. Another 400 Russian soldiers are currently surrounded at an aggregate plant in Vovchansk.

Putin was probably taken by surprise in Kharkiv. Both in terms of Biden’s limited authorization for the use of American-made weapons inside Russia, and the fact that Capitol Hill finally, on a bipartisan basis, approved a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine.

For now, Ukraine can intercept Russian forces in Russia threatening Kharkiv and continue wreaking havoc on Russian forces in the close fight in the Donbass. However, militarily, Biden has left Putin a critical opening: sanctuary.

According to the Institute for the Study of War, Washington’s new rules of engagement have only “reduced the size of Russia’s land sanctuary by just 16 percent.” Alarmingly, the same report found that “US policy still preserves at least 84 percent of Russia’s land sanctuary: territory within the reach of Ukrainian ATACMS.”

On the contrary, Crimea is now even more exposed. Ukraine’s deep strikes with the UK’s Storm Shadow, French SCALP and ATACMS are destroying Russia’s S-300/400 air defense systems, carving out air corridors for F-16 fighter jets arriving in the summer.

The Kerch Strait bridge connecting the Crimean peninsula with the Russian mainland is now even more vulnerable. In particular, on June 12, Lieutenant General Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s defense intelligence directorate, said that Russia moved its prized new S-500 air defense missile system to Crimea to protect the Kerch bridge and its surroundings.

Crimea is finally becoming unsustainable, just as retired Army Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges predicted many months ago. Ukraine is setting conditions with precision deep strike weapons provided by the United States, the United Kingdom and France. When the F-16s reach the skies over Ukraine, they will help seal the deal.

The situation has gone from bad to worse for Putin and his generals. As the rest of the free world gathers in Obbürgen, Switzerland, to discuss how to bring peace to war-torn Ukraine, Putin finds himself increasingly locked in militarily and economically. New US sanctions last week forced the Moscow Stock Exchange to suspend trading in dollars and euros, and Russian banks began to close and go offline.

Putin’s threats of nuclear escalation have not worked and 530,920 Russian soldiers are now dead or wounded. However, Moscow continues with a large amount of artillery and infantry, generating more combat power by obtaining an additional 4.8 million artillery shells from North Korea and planning to mobilize an additional 300,000 troops.

But will Russia’s traditional military reliance on mass be enough now that Ukraine has been given additional capability?

Not likely. His strategy remains one of attrition: exhaust the Ukrainian army and wear down Western support in the face of the prospect of an “forever war.” Sanitary zones are your ultimate goal, which means you have to hold on to what you’ve taken.

Only they are losing ground, most recently in Vovchansk. It’s time for plan B.

Putin’s call for negotiations, as Dudayev described it, is an indicator that Russia is approaching a breaking point. Now is not the time to negotiate. Rather, it is time for the United States and NATO to allow Ukraine to drive Russia out of Ukraine and win this war.

Take the initiative and shut down Russia. Putin is increasingly desperate, as evidenced by his Tuesday visit to North Korea, hat in hand. The red crenellated walls of the Kremlin begin to close around them.