Ukraine has called Putin’s nuclear bluff

Timid Western leaders must seize the rare opportunity offered by Ukraine’s bold masterstroke

Despite Vladimir Putin’s vows to “drive out the enemy,” he has failed to expel or even halt the ongoing Ukrainian incursion into Russia. This is the first time the Motherland has been invaded since the Second World War. Kyiv’s forces now claim to have seized control of 74 settlements and more than 1,000 square km of Russian territory, prompting the evacuation of 200,000 people.
This is a full-blown crisis for the Kremlin. Despite this, after 10 days of enemy troops on Russian soil, there has been no nuclear sabre-rattling from Moscow. Bold military action by Ukraine has, at a stroke, exposed as a bluff Moscow’s key strategy for keeping the West backed off: the fear of nuclear escalation.
President Putin’s “red lines” mean nothing, and it is time our leaders in this country and across the West realised this. On February 23, 2022, on the eve of the invasion, Putin addressed his nation, warning of “unimaginably catastrophic consequences” if any country interfered with Russia’s “Special Military Operation.”
Ukraine has now done that conclusively. But in fact Putin has done nothing since the Ukrainians made their move. That has to be at least in part because he doesn’t have any nuclear option which would magically solve his current problem: it would hardly help him to drop a nuke on Russian territory, after all.
Then, the US has long since promised terrible consequences for Russia’s war if Putin should go nuclear. America’s massive superiority in conventional weapons means it could cripple Russia’s war machine inside Ukraine without needing to use nukes itself and without needing to set a boot or fly a plane outside Nato territory. Add to that the fact that President Xi of China would never condone the use of nukes, and we can see just how unlikely the nuclear scenario is.
Meanwhile the Ukrainian strike into Ukraine was a brilliant tactical move, one which the great British general, Viscount Slim, would have approved of. As Slim put it:
“There’s only one principle of war, and that’s this. Hit the other fellow, as quickly as you can, as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain’t lookin’.”
In fact, Slim’s World War II campaigns against the Japanese in Burma have certain similarities to Ukraine’s current manoeuvres. Judging by their actions this past week, I would surmise that some members of the Ukrainian high command have read Slim’s epic account of the Burma war, Defeat Into Victory. If not, my copy is in the post to Kyiv – but I suspect they already have the knowledge and skills required.Moscow will struggle to respond effectively using non-nuclear means. Its troops are in a sorry state, and pulling units from the existing front inside Ukraine to contain the Kursk incursion will weaken or halt its current offensive, or even cause Russians lines to collapse. Russia has completely lost the sense of momentum it had when laying the groundwork for the invasion.Nothing now stops the West from further supporting Kyiv. Ukraine can win the war outright, evict Russian troops from its territories, stop the bloodshed on both sides, and vanquish another tyrant determined to subjugate Western Europe without fear of escalation and nuclear attack.Our new Prime Minister is leaning into efforts to obtain peace in the Middle East, for which he deserves credit. However, the much closer war in Eastern Europe, a far greater threat to these islands, today requires his urgent and undivided attention.It must be made clear, even to the most timid leaders in Europe, that the nuclear option is not actually available to Putin. The West both can and should remove the shackles it has put on Ukraine and allow that bold nation to fight with its hands free, using its Western weaponry to its full range and capability.This decisive action by Ukraine is an opportunity for Starmer and his new team to make decisions that could hasten peace in Eastern Europe. Such opportunities rarely come in warfare. Churchill and Slim would have grasped this one. Sir Keir Starmer has a chance to make history – let’s hope he’s up to it.
Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon is a former British Army officer