Nina Khrushchev is the great-granddaughter of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the guy who got America’s attention big time when he banged his loafer on the United Nations podium and declared, “We will bury you!” Scary guy. But all in all, considering how things have gone, Khrushchev was not nearly so scary as the homicidal lunatic currently at the Kremlin.
Nina Khrushchev is a professor of international affairs at the New School in New York City. She spoke to Newsweek:
“Since there are questions about how far Russia can go to create victory, and nuclear weapons have been part of the conversation on both sides, Russian and the West, the tactical atomic option is potentially imaginable,” she told Newsweek, adding that her remarks are “not a prediction.”
I “want to be very clear,” she added. “Not saying it will happen, but as far as scenarios go, not inconceivable though not the most likely.”
She earlier told the BBC that “this war is really the one that Putin plans to win, and plans to win at any cost.
“That is suggesting if he needs to declare victory and he may need to use tactical nuclear weapons—I’m not predicting that—but that could be one of the options that the Russians may be prepared to use.” […]
Meanwhile, CIA Director William Burns has said that “potential desperation” could prompt Putin to use a tactical or low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
On Thursday, Burns said the U.S. remains “very concerned” about the possibility that nuclear weapons could be used, but said he had not seen evidence showing such an attack was imminent.
“Given the potential desperation of President Putin and the Russian leadership, given the setbacks that they’ve faced so far, militarily, none of us can take lightly the threat posed by a potential resort to tactical nuclear weapons or low-yield nuclear weapons,” Burns said, according to the New York Times. “We don’t.”
I will give you my prediction. I think Putin will finally be driven to a tactical nuke. I believe he is that desperate and that crazy. I also believe that he’s got enough fifth column activity in his own circle to where people will try to talk him out of it or stall it — and perhaps this has taken place already.
Always bear in mind, this is like a Greek tragedy. Military strategy is not the issue here, character is. Putin has to win. He has to destroy Ukraine. He wanted to just take over Ukraine and then when he found out he couldn’t simply walk in and do that in three days, then I think he decided to destroy Ukraine. That’s why his soldiers have turned into complete animals.
Just my opinion. But that’s what I see. And unless I misread Zelenskyy’s words, he is prepared for anything.
He may resort to nukes, but given what we now know about the professionalism and competence of his military, will they even work? They probably have not been maintained and any money that should have been spent on maintenance has probably been spent on villas, yachts, etc.
If he does indeed deploy a nuke, whether it works or not, that may finally make NATO stand up and end this “war” once and for all. That may be the red line he crosses that the rest of the world will not tolerate.
I hope you are right … but now Sweden & Finland are trying to get into NATO is he going to go after them too ?
If he does that, I suggest that we should take out Red Square and Lenin’s Tomb. Don’t damage anything else, just those two very famous (and political!) locations.
Also, spread sunflower seeds of all kinds on Putin’s country place, and as much of Russia as possible.
Um, do you know anything about Red Square? It’s not going to be quite so easy to “take out” the “Square” (actually a rectangle–about 3 full football fields from the State Historical Museum to St Basil’s and about 2 football fields wide from the outer Kremlin wall to the GUM department store) without doing some damage, either indirect or direct, to some major cultural treasures. (Yuri Gagarin’s ashes are in an urn in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis which stands directly behind Lenin’s Mausoleum.)
To really do the kind of damage you’re suggesting would quite likely result in some collateral damage, possibly weakening some of the infrastructure of the other areas of the “Square.”
There is one other consideration I don’t think you thought about: Red Square is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Putin launching a nuclear strike turns him into a definite war criminal; the US responding by even damaging Red Square turns our country (and, ultimately, President Biden) into no less a war criminal. Remember how the Taliban destroyed the Buddhas of Bamiyan after they took over or the looting of the ancient city of Palmyra in Syria by the Islamic State and the international reaction to the wanton callousness? That’s how the US would be perceived in causing damage to Red Square–no matter the cause.
OR, maybe just sever the pipe lines from Russia to other countries, like Germany, with agreements to supply their minimum real needs for oil and boost their already robust clean energy systems, solar and wind … Putin’s huge income from scalping those funds would be gone instantly, huge fires, hard to extinguish plus gobs of free-burning oil products, would tie up a lot of military action and red flag Putin’s idiotic plans to the Russian citizens …
The huge tanks of combustibles at their Russia pumping stations would require some Putin time of being a shit head for all the world to see …