If Vladimir Putin deploys nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the United States would respond with “a devastating strike,” the former commander of the US Army in Europe has warned.
While warning that any American reaction “may not be nuclear,” retired lieutenant general Ben Hodges said today that if Putin used nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the US may try to “destroy the Black Sea Fleet or attack Russian bases in Crimea.”
His remarks follow the Russian prime minister’s shocking announcement that his reserve armed forces will be “partial mobilized” in order to continue his homicidal invasion of Ukraine.
And desperate despot Putin declared he would use “all means” required to defend vast tracts of territory captured or slated for annexation by Kremlin forces before threatening to deploy nuclear weapons in a terrifying warning directly addressed to Western and Nato leaders.
In his televised speech to the Russian people on Wednesday morning, he said, “If there is a threat to the territorial integrity of our nation, and in safeguarding our people, we will surely employ all means to us – and I’m not bluffing.”
Gen. Hodges, who led the US Army in Europe from 2014 to 2018, emphasized that it was “extremely unlikely” that Putin would order a nuclear attack on Ukraine.
But he said that President Joe Biden will respond swiftly and harshly to the use of any strategic weapons of mass devastation.
According to Gen. Hodges, “He [Putin] knows the US will have to respond if Russia uses a nuclear bomb.”
The US response might not involve nuclear weapons, but it very well might involve a devastating attack that, for instance, might destroy the Black Sea Fleet or Russian sites in Crimea.
Therefore, I believe that President Putin and those around him will be hesitant to directly involve the US in the fight.
Putin today erroneously claimed that Nato was attempting to start “military action on Russian soil” in a vicious attack on the West.
Speaking from behind a wooden desk, Putin said to Russian viewers watching state-run television: “The West has crossed all borders with its aggressive anti-Russian actions.”
“We constantly hear threats against our people, and some irresponsible politicians in the West are talking about not just giving Ukraine long-range military systems that can hit Russia – that is already happening – but also the border regions, in Belgorod, and systems using strategic drones, planes, and doing reconnaissance across the south.
Plans exist in Washington and Brussels to extend the military operation to Russian soil.
They are discussing wholesale looting of all forms of sovereignty, including political, cultural, and all others, in addition to the destruction of Russia on the battlefield. They are currently discussing nuclear blackmail.
If Russia did launch a nuclear strike, the naval port of Sevastopol on Crimea’s western shore, which has been controlled by Kremlin forces since the peninsula was taken in 2014, might be one of the US’s potential targets.
According to British intelligence, Moscow has already relocated some of its Kilo-class attack submarines from the Crimean peninsula to southern Russia because of concern that they would be hit by long-range Ukrainian fire.
The UK Ministry of Defence stated in a daily briefing on Tuesday that the submarines had ‘very likely’ been transferred from a naval facility at Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula to Krasnodar Krai in mainland Russia.
The decision was made at a time when Putin must consider whether his purported “special military operation” will succeed in the wake of a spectacular Ukrainian counterattack last week that drove Russian forces in the northwest back across the Ukrainian border.
Putin stepped up his assault on Ukraine despite serious manpower and equipment shortages, declaring the ‘partial mobilization’ of 300,000 military reservists – the first in Russia since the Second World War – and referendums in occupied Ukrainian regions to become a part of Russia.
There will be elections in occupied Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk, and Luhansk, which together make up the Donbas.
On Tuesday, the White House and Moscow both rejected the Kremlin’s intentions to stage referendums in several regions of Ukraine, referring to them as “shams with no legitimacy.”
The national security advisor to President Joe Biden, Jake Sullivan, referred to the referendums as a violation of the concepts of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In an effort to persuade friends to steadfastly support the Ukrainian resistance, Biden is prepared to declare at the UN General Assembly that the invasion is an insult to the core values of the organization.
“He’ll provide a clear rebuke of Russia’s unlawful conflict in Ukraine and issue a call to the world to keep standing against the blatant aggression that we’ve witnessed these past few months,” Mr. Sullivan said.
At a time when a permanent member of the Security Council has attacked the fundamental foundation of the charter by contesting the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty, he will stress the necessity of strengthening the United Nations and reaffirm key principles of its charter.
Putin declared that the West was attempting to “divide and destroy” Russia and issued a dire warning to those who were attempting to extort us with nuclear weapons: “The tables can turn on them.”
His action puts Putin at odds with Kyiv and its Western partners, who have already declared that they will continue to launch strikes to liberate areas under Russian rule and that the outcomes of any “fake” referendums won’t be accepted.
The Russian president’s choice, however, also provides a hint as to the challenges his military faces in deploying enough troops to the front lines.
The number of Russian fatalities cannot be verified. But this morning, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry asserted that more than 55,000 Russian soldiers had been “eliminated.” The Institute for the Study of War estimated yesterday that up to 80,000 Russian soldiers may have been killed or injured.
According to Gen. Hodges, it was obvious that the invasion had a negative impact on Putin’s poorly-equipped force.
The former military leader claimed that Putin’s deployment of troops had no “significant influence” and that it was “too early to tell” what the Russian people will do in response.
He told MailOnline, “I don’t think that too many of them will be deceived by the illogic of it, and I don’t anticipate that many would report as commanded.”
Before the Russian reserves could be “fully outfitted” and sent to Ukraine, he claimed, “months” would pass.
He continued, “Without heavy artillery support, these new men will be little more than cannon fodder this winter when Ukrainian forces march forward.”
Unfortunately for these men, Ukrainian attacks on the logistical chain that supplies ammo to the cannons have made Russian artillery less and less effective.
The Russian military forces currently have a severe manpower shortage, he said, therefore there is very little enthusiasm for any Russians willing to join this conflict.
I don’t anticipate any good times for the Russian military or the current Putin administration.
The situation for Russia’s forces is getting worse as the conflict in Ukraine, which was only supposed to last a few days, is now almost seven months old.
The Kremlin’s war machine instead concentrated its efforts on “liberating” the eastern Donbas region after being had to back from Kyiv in the early months of conflict as its progress stagnated.
Russia took control of the whole Luhansk region after months of grueling fighting, but only around half of the adjacent Donetsk region, which together make up the Donbas.
As Russia’s advances slowed and ultimately stopped, Ukraine launched an onslaught against the southern city of Kherson in retaliation.
Russia deployed troops from other parts of the nation to assist in the city’s defense, at which point Ukraine began a second counterattack from Kharkiv, in the north, into the east.
The Kremlin’s commanders were entirely unprepared for that action, which set off a defeat that returned to Ukraine in a matter of days 3,000 square kilometers of terrain that Russia had spent months seizing.
Additionally, Kyiv has kept up the attack, seizing control of the Luhansk region and posing a threat to advance further throughout the province.
Putin had no choice but to start enlisting men because there weren’t enough soldiers to defend the land he had already taken.
Experts and analysts disagree, saying that it won’t significantly alter the course of the conflict in his favor.
To recruit, outfit, train, and transport hundreds of thousands more soldiers to the front lines will take at least weeks, probably months; this is time that Russia does not have.
By the time reinforcements arrive, winter will have arrived, making combat operations much more difficult and complicating the extremely difficult situation the Russian military is presently in.
Additionally, recruiting more troops will not address Russia’s persistent shortage of supplies and equipment within its ranks or resolve the logistical problems that have stymied its attacks.
Some compared it to the devastating Winter War the Soviet Union waged against Finland, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers dying or being injured compared to roughly 25,000 Finns.
Putin’s words at the UN last night were anticipated by Western leaders, who declared they would not accept the outcomes of any “fake” referendums in Ukraine.
“The Russians are free to do as they choose.” As world leaders arrived for the United Nations General Assembly gathering on Tuesday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba remarked, “It won’t alter anything.
Later, he emphasized the subject once more in a tweet that read: “Sham’referendums’ will not change anything.” Any hybrid “mobilization” won’t either.
“Russia has been and is still occupying Ukrainian territory unlawfully.” Whatever Russia says, Ukraine has every right to liberate its regions, and it will continue to do so.
According to French President Emmanuel Macron, the referendum idea “would be comical if it weren’t so awful.”
