Russian President Vladimir Putin has raised anew the possibility he might use nuclear weapons against Ukraine to prevail in a conflict going sideways. The smart money says he won’t, because doing so — or otherwise expanding the conflict drastically — wouldn’t make a bad situation any better.
Yet the smart money might not have predicted the choices that set Putin down this path in the first place.
Much of Putin’s televised speech Tuesday was a repetition of the familiar. He again blamed the U.S., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine for the current conflict. He restated the goal of “liberating” the Donbas region. Yet Putin did say something new: That Russia is mobilizing, albeit partially, for a long war by increasing arms production and calling up 300,000 additional troops, mostly reservists. He pledged to support referendums that could lead to annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine.
