Invasion of Ukraine: Putin's Latest Googly

[Sukla Sen]

Trying to confuse!?

<<Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that he would conduct a nuclear strike in Ukraine, saying Thursday that "it doesn't make sense for us to do it.>>

(Excerpted from: <https://www.axios.com/2022/10/27/putin-russia-nuclear-weapons-ukraine>.)

It's only on September 21st, Putin had issued the least veiled nuclear threat till now: <https://tass.com/politics/1511081>.

The first time he did it was on Feb. 24th: <https://news.yahoo.com/putin-spreads-nonsense-ukraines-dirty-121857508.html>.

He kept making, thinly veiled, threats from time to time: <https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2022/10/24/putins-nuclear-threats-in-his-own-words/>.

His minions, all the while, kept doing it, a tad or two even more openly (ref., in particular,: <https://tass.com/politics/1513883> and

<https://tass.com/politics/1511725>).

And just the other day, Putin himself has, reportedly, made the--unsubstantiated and rather implausible--allegation about Ukraine's plan to use a "dirty bomb": <https://news.yahoo.com/putin-spreads-nonsense-ukraines-dirty-121857508.html> and <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/27/vladimir-putin-says-dirty-bomb-claims-to-nato-were-made-on-his-orders>.

The allegation has, conceivably, the potential to be used as a convenient alibi for making a nuclear strike.

So, it's very difficult to decipher whether Putin's latest pronouncement on the pointlessness of the use of the nuclear bomb against Ukraine is meant to keep his opponents perpetually confused or it's indicative of his intention now to finally wrap up the "Special Military Operation" based on the realisation that he cannot make any further gain by continuing his armed aggression.