Defeats on the battlefield in Ukraine could “convince” Russian President Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons.
This is the warning that comes recently from a former deputy secretary of NATO.
Rose Gottemoeller, the alliance’s deputy secretary general between 2016 and 2019, praised the achievements of Kiev’s forces in their counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, but warned of what might prompt the Russian leader to do in response.
Gottemoeller said that seeing how “Putin and his cronies have behaved during this crisis,” her fear is that “they (the Russians) are now going to retaliate in really unpredictable ways that could include weapons of mass destruction.”.
When asked if she meant “some kind of a nuclear attack,” Gottemoeller replied, “yes,” though emphasizing that she believed that would not include their strategic central systems, intercontinental ballistic missiles [ICBMs] or submarine-launched missiles targeting the United States.
“We’ve been concerned since the beginning of this crisis with Putin that he might come in for a nuclear demonstration attack,” she was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
This could be either “a single strike over the Black Sea, or perhaps a strike on a Ukrainian military facility.”
At the start of the war, she said she was concerned that Russia would stage fake attacks and launch biological or chemical attacks against Ukrainian targets to blame Kiev.
