Moscow’s gigantic Red Square prepares for this Friday’s party, in which the president’s 70th birthday will be celebrated with a huge crowd Vladimir Putin and the contested victory the annexation of four regions of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.
These are Donetsk and Luhansk to the east, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson to the south, where Ukrainian troops I’m in full offensive. This Thursday they announced they had conquered Another 400 kilometers of territory in the Kherson region.
Less friendly to the Russian leader is that Friday also marks the 227th day of the invasion he launched at the end of February, with a war that is far from winning and this forces him to make his hair stand on end with his threats to drop a tactical atomic bomb to defend the “Russian land”.
The best gift Putin has received in the last few hours is the decision of the oil exporting countries grouped in OPEC, gathered in Vienna, to reduce world sales by two million barrels a day, which sharply rising prices and directly benefits Russian hydrocarbon sales.
Putin acknowledged Thursday that the eighth package of Western sanctions to punish imports and exports, further damaging Russian industry and its military productions, indicates that penalties “will continue to increase” and that it is necessary to prepare with plans to contain the consequences “in the short and medium term”.
The bomb
The dramatic tones caused by the Russian threats to drop a low-powered nuclear bomb led the European Parliament to 27 nations to decide in Strasbourg to urgently ask the EU Commission based in Brussels to prepare immediately a response in the event of a Russian atomic attack.
The lack of a clear victory in Ukraine inevitably opens contained protests on the domestic front. Especially the criticism of the role of the military and involving Putin himself.
The London “Mail” publishes from NATO sources, the Western military alliance, the news that Putin returns to Moscow this Thursday from the bunker outside the Russian capital where he meditated on the crisis and his option to get out of the ropes in Ukraine with use of a terrestrial nuclear test or an explosion in the Black Sea it would be more controlled.
The train of the Nuclear Division of the Ministry of Defense, detected by western satellites the movement towards Ukraine feeds the flames of global anxiety. André Futter, professor at the University of Leicester and expert on atomic issues, argues that by mobilizing the train for the moment “is a new warning launched by Putin in the West ”.
The truth is that gradually information begins to open with great prudence to avoid the repression of a regime that punishes with ten years of imprisonment anyone who writes or denounces “declaring” that Russia is fighting a war of invasion in Ukraine.
Indeed, the fig leaf of “special operations” fell after Putin signed the mobilization of 300,000 Russians who are incorporated into the armed forces, while opting for an imprecise but voluminous number of middle-aged citizens flee the country to avoid forced conscription.
In the media and social networks they are the uncompromising those who posted the information they show the existence of a debate.
After the withdrawal from Kharkov of the Russian troops who had launched a vast offensive in the East, there was an active search for traitors. The army commander and now deputy of the Duma (Parliament), Lieutenant General Anrey Gurulev, has joined in the criticism of the military facilities for their “spreading lies” that all is well in special operations, that is, war.
Gurulev said it it is not true that the Ministry of Defense controls the situation. directly accused to the chief of staff, Valery Gerasimov, who until the beginning of the war was considered a military genius who for a decade had thoroughly reorganized the armed forces with the support of Putin.
The attacks also focus on the Defense Minister himself, Sergei Shoiju, and on the military leaders who were fired.
This was reported by a web channel near the Kremlin “Commanders do not have access to President Putin for months. “All information would pass through Gerasimov” and the feeling is that convey almost nothing to the president“.
the nuclear codes
What they do not say, and strangely the Western press does not give them the importance of these controversies, is that both Defense Minister Shoigu and Chief of Staff Gerasimov have in their power. the codes for the case of a nuclear warwhich they share with President Putin.
Another hardline site claims that “there is a suspicion that they are lying” to the leader. “As long as the president of Russia does not personally listen to the reports of the commanders, the situation will not change.”
Target Shoigu and Gerasimov, the highest military authorities, it means promoting traumatic change of leaders of the armed forces, which they have in their possession two of the three codes top secret needed for launch strategic atomic weapons Russians, which could start the third world war. A conflict that will have no winners because it will extinguish the population of the planet.
The codes owned by Putin are not enough, the matching codes of Shoigu and Gerasimov are also needed to trigger the atomic hell.
Colonel and reserve politician Viktor Alksnis has hit the mark blame Putin directly for his decisions as commander in chief. “These are the roots of our defeats today,” he said.
Another source who chooses anonymity points out: “Now criticism for the lack of positive results reach Putin himself “than in the circles of power he was a sacred figure which are rapidly desecrating.
Russian political scientist Gallyamov recalls that “Putin is respected only because he is strong. It has no other sources of legitimacy. And a military-type leader is weakened when he acts irrational way insisting, for example, against military retreats in battle theaters. confuse the military and people don’t like defeats.
According to Gallyamov, “in the Kremlin many are dissatisfied. Nobody expected a long bloody war, much less a defeat “.
remove Putin from power
Ukrainians support it preparations for Putin’s removal of power are already underway and “Putin knows he can be overthrown by his own trusted circle of power.”
A test will be your decision to be a candidate yet another re-election in 2024. It seems too long a period of time: events will continue if the defeats in Ukraine continue and a war continues that also produces a growing economic recession.
At the Pentagon, where in the strategic office all alternatives are studied of a nuclear confrontation, they say so far there is no sign that Russia is preparing to use nuclear weapons. But CIA director and former US ambassador to Russia Bill Burns argues that “Putin sits with his back to the wall and can be dangerous and reckless“.
According to the London Times, based on a NATO source, the Kremlin prepares a show of force with real exercises or actions, involving the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
China’s reaction
Indeed, a key deterrent to stopping Putin is China’s reaction. And from India. Both leaders of the two nations, who make up more than half of the world’s population, told Putin at the Asian summit in Samarkand that “this this is not the time make a war ».
A demonstration action with a tactical nuclear bomb which is equivalent to one third from the one dropped by a US bomber over Hiroshima, Russia’s isolation would increase of the Chinese ally himself and of the non-aligned countries that Putin need to close.
Remember that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former CIA Chief General David Petraeus warned that if it was Putin disconnected from reality give the fatal order, the US response can be one, without resorting to a nuclear weapon response.
“We will eliminate all conventional Russian forces on the battlefield in Ukraine, including Crimea, and punish the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. But it will not be nuclear versus nuclear“.
Rome, correspondent
ap
Source: Clarin
