The West has already understood that Russia's nuclear threats are a bluff, so they will provide Ukraine with armed support to liberate the territories, but will act according to the strategy of small steps.

In an interview with TSN.ua, the head of the "Regional security and conflict research" direction of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation named after Ilko Kucheriv and Maria Zolkina, a researcher at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, told about this.

She reported that the West understood that

Russia had heard their signals about the need to stop nuclear blackmail

. 

"The population in the West, especially in Europe, is afraid of a nuclear attack and takes these warnings more seriously than even European politicians. Therefore, it will emerge and Russia will definitely use this argument further. But as for the Western politicians, they understood that everything the signals given to Moscow were heard in Moscow," the expert said.

"If there was tension with direct nuclear threats from key officials and Putin himself at the end of September, then

this topic did not particularly emerge from Putin in the information space

. That is, Medvedev, who writes to himself in "Telegram", Rogozin, can say this , which it is not known who he represents now. But we can guess that Washington gave a very clear signal to the Kremlin that there is no need to use nuclear weapons and even talk about nuclear blackmail," Zolkina added.

She also drew attention to the fact that Putin's nuclear threats were not supported by India and China.

The researcher believes that the West will continue to provide weapons to Ukraine, while studying how the Kremlin reacts to this.

"That's why the level of warnings on the part of politicians in Europe and in the West has decreased. And

they realized that this is mostly a bluff

, and we will see later. That is, in terms of armed support of Ukraine, the deoccupation of lands on the one hand, and the possibility of a nuclear response "The West will follow Russia step by step. That is, it will be a strategy of small steps: watch, react, investigate with the help of intelligence how the Kremlin reacts to this, and

slowly bite the Kremlin

," the expert explained.

It will be recalled that in mid-January, Ms. Julian Smith, the US ambassador to NATO, said that Russia had been warned about the consequences of a nuclear strike from its side.

So despite all kinds of threats, the probability of such a strike is low.

The day before, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also stated that the risk of the use of nuclear weapons by the Russian Federation is small.

At the same time, the head of the Alliance emphasized that the Kremlin's "nuclear rhetoric" is irresponsible and dangerous.

At the same time, the head of the Bellingcat intelligence community Hristo Grozev states that Putin is seriously considering the possibility of a nuclear strike on Poland.

Read also:

  • Ukraine news

  • War in Ukraine

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