Putin’s nuclear threat: Now the West takes it seriously
For NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine amount to one thing – “nuclear blackmailing.”
NATO partners will not bow to such nuke-rattling, the alliance leader said this week, and will not stop supporting Ukraine for fear of a Russian nuclear strike.
Yet as the United States and European powers confront what has rapidly become the most serious nuclear showdown in 60 years, their response has shifted from an almost blasé dismissal of Mr. Putin’s nuclear threats early in the war to planning for a swift and overwhelming response, should Russia actually resort to the previously unthinkable.
President Putin “is not joking when he
