NATO Dangerously Close To WWIII Over Putin Nuke Plans

ANALYSIS – As Vladimir Putin makes new nuclear threats against NATO over the possibility it will permit Ukraine to use western weapons to strike targets deep in Russia, most don't know how close we came to a real war in 2022.

As I wrote about recently, Putin is again considering a nuclear show of force to show his seriousness and concern. This includes the possibility of a tactical nuke test in the arctic on a mock-up of downtown London and D.C.

Tactical nukes have a much smaller payload than the larger strategic or nuclear weapons but are still devastating.

Using them would also cross a major global redline against using any type of nuke.

Note that even though many of his threats may just be bluffs and bluster, Putin controls the world's biggest nuclear arsenal, with almost 6,000 warheads.

And the last time he considered crazy scenarios like this, we came very close to war.

Early in the invasion of Ukraine, launched in February of 2022, Putin was reportedly exploring options to deter NATO involvement that included exploding a ‘tactical nuclear weapon' over the Black Sea.

At the time, Putin's original plan for a successful three-day invasion was going up in smoke. Instead of marching in a victory parade, the vaunted Russian Army was being forced to retreat from Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

The U.S. Sun reports:

The head of America's CIA, Bill Burns, confirmed during a speech in London last week that there was “genuine risk”, early on in the war, that Moscow was about to drop a nuke. It was the autumn of 2022.

The Sun revealed at the time that the then UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace made an emergency dash to the States for crisis talks at the Pentagon.

Then, Russia's frontlines collapsed east of Kharkiv when Ukraine fired its first GMLRS guided missiles received urgently from the U.S. and U.K.

As his forces were pushed out of Ukraine's southern city of Kherson, the only regional capital they had captured since the invasion, Putin worried he could lose Crimea, home to his Black Sea naval base.

His solution? Use a tactical nuke as a show of force.

While kept from the public, NATO's response was frantic but forceful.

The U.S. Sun adds: “Burns was dispatched to Turkey to meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Naryshkin, head of the SVR foreign intelligence service, which is the modern-day KGB.”

The outlet continues: “Speaking in London last week, Burns said he was ‘very clear' with Naryshkin what the consequences would be if Putin did go nuclear.”

“Burns did not reveal details of those threats, but The Sun understands they included the prospect of ‘massive and direct' conventional strikes by the US and its allies against Russia.”

While the threatened U.S. response would not be nuclear, initially, it was enough to dissuade Putin.

The CIA director said: “I have never thought – and this is the view of my agency – that we should be unnecessarily intimidated by [nuclear threats].”

Still, one day, we may call Putin's bluffs once too many times. And feeling cornered and on the verge of real defeat, he may just follow through with his nuke threats.

This is the dilemma we face again now as Joe Biden and the U.K.'s Sir Keir Starmer consider allowing Kyiv to use American and British provided weapons to strike deep into Russia.

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