Putin's 'nuclear' threat against the world underscores his growing fears of defeat.

On the 4th May 2015 I wrote that,

"Putin may be basking in the sunlight of his sky-high popularity ratings at home, but these ratings are as a 'millstone around his neck' since it has shut off any earlier 'exit strategy' of his war with Ukraine from the tangled web of deception that he has so assiduously woven around himself, and by his voracious tapping into that Russian vein of nationalism over his war with Ukraine." (blog entry 4 May 2015)

Fast forward to the 29th February 2024 and, during his annual address to the Russian people,  Zahra Khaliq (right) reports that,

"Russia is fighting against [a decling birth rate] at every level of government and the authorities. It is our religion and our moral values which are to the fore here. Big families must become the norm. In the next six years, we have to achieve a sustainable birth rate," he said, as he announced [at his annual address] extra financial support for larger families." (Daily Mirror : 29 February 2024) (my emphasis) 

WION : January 2024 : YouTube

And as reported by Will Stewart (left),

"This is the cringeworthy moment a Russian state TV presenter announces her plan to get pregnant after Vladimir Putin's call for women [at his annual address to the nation] to give birth to stave off a demographic crisis.

Natalya Litovko, 43, announced she and her husband had been inspired by the Kremlin leader's call in his state-of-the-nation address to fulfil their patriotic duty and procreate." (Mail Online : 29 February 2024) (my emphasis)

Mail Online : 29 February 2024

Following on from Putin exhorting Russian women to have more than 7 children, as did their great-great grandmothers, Lipika Pelham & Lou Newton report that,

"Several Nato countries, including the US, Germany and the UK, have ruled out deploying ground troops to Ukraine, after French President Emmanuel Macron said "nothing should be excluded".

Mr Macron said there was "no consensus" on sending Western soldiers to Ukraine." ( BBC News : 28 February 2024) (my emphasis)).

To which Putin responded,

"Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned NATO against sending its troops to help Ukraine, in an explicit nuclear threat.

"There has been talk of sending NATO contingents to Ukraine. But we remember the fate of those who sent contingents [in the past]. Now the consequences for the interventionists will be much more tragic," Putin said in a speech to Russia's parliament.

"We too have weapons that can hit targets on their territory. This really threatens a conflict with nuclear weapons, and thus the destruction of civilization," he added." ( Denis Leven (left): Politico : 29 February 2024) (my emphasis)

DW News : 29 February 2024 : YouTube

This latest "armageddon" threat of Putin comes close on the heels of, as reported by Nathan Rennolds (left) that,

"German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been criticized for a "flagrant abuse of intelligence" after he appeared to suggest British and French soldiers had been helping Ukraine fire missiles they had supplied.

Scholz made the comments while explaining his reluctance to send Germany's long-range Taurus cruise missile to Ukraine, which he said risked the country becoming directly involved in the war.
...
"What is being done in the way of target control and accompanying target control on the part of the British and the French can't be done in Germany. Everyone who has dealt with this system knows that," he said, The Associated Press reported.

"German soldiers must at no point and in no place be linked to targets this system reaches," he added.

Defense sources told The Telegraph that his comments had increased concerns over the safety of military and diplomatic personnel from the two countries.

Former UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace accused Scholz of "not only dangerous use of facts but also often wrong facts." (Business Insider : 29 February 2024) (my emphasis)

As I wrote in my blog entry of 20 February 2015,

"As the Economist (May 10th 2014) pointed out many months ago,

"When Germans add the word Versteher (one who understands) to a term, they generally mix flattery with irony. So a Frauenversteher (one who understands women) is usually a man who boasts excessively about his knowledge of the opposite sex. The label is now being attached to so-called Russlandversteher or Putinversteher: members of the [German] elite or intelligentsia who gush with empathy for Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, on talk shows, in journals and at dinner parties." (my emphasis)" (blog entry : 20 February 2015)

Nothing, it would seem, has fundamentally changed in the "Putinversteher" mentality of Germany's SPD political party, as evidenced by the current SPD Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz (left) 'falsely' suggesting that,

"...  British and French soldiers had been helping Ukraine fire missiles they had supplied."

 Is this 'timid' attitude of Scholtz an indicator of just how much German businessmen are trying to protect the billions of Euros that they have invested in Putin's Russia?

It is becoming more obvious by the day that Putin and his 'siloviki' are been forced to throw everything (short of the proverbial 'kitchen sink') at Ukraine to assuage their growing fear of their doomed war with Ukraine. 

Putin's reaction to Macron's threat of  NATO soldiers joining Ukraine in its war with Russia underscores just how great is his fear that his war with Ukraine is doomed.

UPDATE : 3 March 2024

 In a detailed article entitled "Germany’s elites run scared as Putin rains down death on Ukraine", Daniel Johnson (left) writes,

• Not only does Scholz show every sign of being susceptible to this kind of intimidation [i.e. 'nuclear' armageddon being threatened] by Putin, but he probably also believes that his own political survival depends on not angering the Russian bear.

•  Two thirds (66pc) [of Germans] still agree that Ukraine should receive military support, but of those only just over half (54pc) are in favour of restoring Ukraine’s lost territories, while 41pc merely want Russia to be held in check [according to the respected Körber Foundation’s latest poll]

•  Unlike the supine Berlin elites, [German Defence Minister] Pistorius grasps that the military vulnerability of Europe’s largest economy is an open invitation to Russian aggression.

•  A year ago Berlin’s Centre for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy revealed that public approval of pro-Russian narratives in Germany had increased “significantly”, particularly in the formerly communist East.

•  Last October a poll found that 40pc of all Germans at least partially believe Putin’s claim that Nato “provoked” the invasion of Ukraine. In the former East German provinces this figure rises to 59pc.

•  Faced with a fracturing country, Chancellor Scholz is paralysed by fear. Rather than seek to unify his people and provide leadership, he is shrinking. (Daily Telegraph : 3 March 2024) (my emphasis) 
  
  
  

                                                       Scholtz and Putin

 Daniel Johnson's article underscores the fact that the "Putinversteher" mentality detailed in the Economist article of May of 2014 is alive and thriving in Scholz's Germany, at the expense of the people of Ukraine being ruthlessly and continuously bombed by Putin and his 'siloviki'.

 

(to be continued)