[Sukla Sen]

This latest bout of nuclear sabre-rattling is too reckless and dangerous. It impels the opponent to respond likewise. In the process, things may just spiral out of hand.

Russia has announced plans to hold referendums in the occupied territories so as to declare these as Russian territories. That'd provide Russia an additional alibi to use nuclear weapons in response to (the ongoing) attempts to liberate and make the threats of nuclear strikes even more ominous.

Under the circumstances, what's called for is a resolute and sturdy response--a stern refusal to blink. That's the way to raise the probability of deterrence working and thereby avert the unthinkable.

But, undoubtedly, we are a bit closer to the apocalypse now.

<<President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine, warning the West he was not bluffing when he said he'd be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.

In the biggest escalation of the Ukraine war since Moscow's Feb. 24 invasion, Putin explicitly raised the spectre of a nuclear conflict, approved a plan to annex a chunk of Ukraine the size of Hungary, and called up 300,000 reservists.

"If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will without doubt use all available means to protect Russia and our people - this is not a bluff," Putin said in a televised address to the nation.

Citing NATO expansion towards Russia's borders, Putin said the West was plotting to destroy his country, engaging in "nuclear blackmail" by allegedly discussing the potential use of nuclear weapons against Moscow, and accused the United States, the European Union and Britain of encouraging Ukraine to push military operations into Russia itself.

"In its aggressive anti-Russian policy, the West has crossed every line," Putin said. "This is not a bluff. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them."

The address, which followed a critical Russian battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine, fuelled speculation about the course of the war, the 69-year-old Kremlin chief's own future, and showed Putin was doubling down on what he calls his "special military operation" in Ukraine.>>

(Excerpted from: <https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-signs-decree-mobilisation-says-west-wants-destroy-russia-2022-09-21/>.)