Will Putin’s Legacy Be Nuclear Armageddon?

January 26, 2023 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: |  Print This Article

Will Putin’s Legacy Be Nuclear Armageddon?

Paul Craig Roberts

How long is Putin going to sit on his butt and allow his limited military operation to be widened into nuclear war?  If Putin does not soon fulfill his responsibility to quickly bring the conflict to a decisive Russian victory before Washington and NATO can further widen the war, Putin’s legacy will be nuclear Armageddon. 

For a year now Putin has allowed a war Russia could have quickly won to widen into a confrontation between the US/NATO and Russia. This is no longer a limited Russian operation in Donbass.  Each successive widening by the West has crossed more Russian red lines that are never enforced. If Putin wasn’t willing to fight a war, he should not have gone into Donbass.

Now with heavy armor such as Leopard and Abrams tanks on their way to Ukraine comes depleted uranium ammunition. The Russians say they regard the use of such ammunition the same as the use of dirty nuclear bombs.  Konstantin Gavrilov says “we will consider this as a use against Russia of dirty bombs with all the ensuing consequences.”

So, by sitting on his butt for a year, making a mockery of Russia’s military strength, playing an uncalled for goody two shoes role, Putin’s forever war has widened to the nuclear level.  

And there is still no sign of any change in Putin’s conduct of the conflict. 

It does seem that Putin very belatedly has mobilized some Russian Army soldiers to take some of the burden from the Donbass militias and the private army group known as the Wagner Group, which are the two outnumbered forces that have been fighting the large American trained and equipped Ukrainian Army.  If  independent reports are correct, these Russian Army soldiers and their equipment are sufficient to break through the Ukrainian defensive lines and roll up the remaining Ukrainians.  But apparently, Putin’s approach hasn’t changed.  It will still be the slow slog village by village.  The depleted uranium ammo will be fired. The Russians will again forget their warning and do nothing.  Then longer range US missiles will be sent to Ukraine, and Moscow will be hit.  Again Putin will do nothing, thus encouraging more and worse provocations until the result is nuclear war.

To avoid this slow march to planetary death, what is called for is the complete shutdown of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lutsk, Lviv, and Odesa, the destruction of all power, water, and transportation infrastructure,  air drops of troops and heavy armor and pouring of hundreds of thousands of troops across the Belarus border to seal Ukraine off from the West, and the complete and total annihilation of the Zelensky Nazi government and Ukrainian military.  This can be done in blitzkrieg fashion before the West can react.  

Horrible, you say.  Yes, indeed, horrible.  But far better than nuclear Armageddon which is where this slow war scenario of Putin’s is going.