Ukraine update: Vladimir Putin is unraveling as no one listens to his threats

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There’s a scene in the animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas, where the big bad, the Oogie Boogie Man, is revealed to be nothing more than a chaotic collection of insects and worms sewn into a crude burlap covering. As the pile of squirmy things falls apart, Oogie continues issuing threats, only his voice becomes increasingly tiny, and tinny, before it is finally silenced with the crushing of a single bug.

In the past 50 days, since sending tanks into Ukraine, Vladimir Putin’s stitching has begun to sag open at the seams. More than a few of those creepies, crawlies, and long-leggedy beasties have escaped. And his threats  just seem … a lot less threatening.

On Thursday evening, The Washington Post reported that Putin delivered a threatening letter to President Joe Biden. That letter expressed “Russia’s concerns in the context of massive supplies of weapons and military equipment to the Kiev regime.” It warned the U.S. to stop sending “most sensitive” weapons to Ukraine, and moaned that the U.S. was ignoring “the threat of high-precision weapons falling into the hands of radical nationalists, extremists and bandit forces in Ukraine.” 

In short, Putin’s letter could be boiled down to “You better stop sending people who are trying to fight back against us things that are effectively helping them to fight back. Or else.” But what that Or Else might be, Putin doesn’t specify.

Most of the attention seems to be directed at the idea that Russia might move to stop the West from supplying more weapons to Ukraine. That could translate into more bombs falling on both Kyiv and the border city of Lviv, as well as attempts to destroy railway lines in western Ukraine. Some experts believe that Russia might also go after NATO supplies in NATO territory … which would be blisteringly foolish, unless Putin wants to see why F-15s flown by U.S. F-15 pilots have a 104 kills, 0 losses record in aerial combat. There are also probably a lot of generals who would appreciate the chance to check out the latest upgrades to the Abrams M1 tank … though to be honest, U.S. tanks also have a crappy record when it comes to going up against the highly advanced Guy Carrying Anti-Tank Missile.

Also on Thursday, Reuters reported that Russia was making threats toward Finland and Sweden as both nations continue on a fast track to joining NATO. The deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council said that Russia would “have to strengthen its land, naval and air forces in the Baltic Sea” if the Nordic pair signed on to NATO. However, threatening to send more Russian naval forces into the Baltic Sea just doesn’t seem so scary following events earlier in the week. Just like how a month of watching Russia operate on the ground in Ukraine has knocked about eight feet off the formerly 10-foot metaphorical height of Russian troops. 

Timing, as they say, is everything. And this is the wrong time for the Russian military to be making threats.

At the moment, it is absolutely clear to everyone that Russia has bitten off more than it can chew in Ukraine alone. The threat that they’re about to extend conventional hostilities anywhere else is not so much a threat as it is the desperate squeaking of those scattering bugs.

But of course there is one thing, and one thing only, that keeps everyone from going all in to grind Putin under the heel of a ridiculously tiny boot.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN Friday that “all of the countries of the world” should be prepared for the possibility that Russian President Vladimir Putin could use tactical nuclear weapons in his war on Ukraine.

Frustrated by an inability to secure quick victory and demonstrating their anger after the sinking of the Moskva missile cruiser, Russia has responded by lobbing more missiles in Kyiv and opening fire on civilians in what was supposed to be another of those safe corridors. Zelenskyy has a good reason to be concerned about those tactical nukes as Putin’s next option to express his anger.

Should Putin follow through on concerns about “attacking NATO weapons in NATO territory,” he would immediately trigger NATO’s famous Section 5 and generate a pile-on of multiple military forces. Those forces might stop at pushing Russia completely out of Ukraine. They might not. In short, dropping a weapon anywhere in NATO territory is a formula by which Putin would almost certainly lose Crimea and the Donbas region, along with his army.

But if Russia did deploy a tactical nuke inside Ukraine, the response would be … honestly, I don’t know. There’s a very good chance that neither President Biden or President Zelenskyy knows the answer to either what would happen next, or what should happen next. The use of a tactical nuke by Russia would be a desperation move on the part of Putin. It wouldn’t make the people affected by the weapon any less dead.

What could Russia do with a tactical nuke on the battlefield? Really, there’s not a lot. One of the reasons that research into these weapons dropped severely over the past 50 years is a recognition that there are few roles such a weapon can play. A tactical nuke might be useful in digging an opponent out of a heavily fortified bunker. It might destroy a large number of forces gathered at a military base. In terms of clearing the road so your tanks can drive through, it’s hard to find a workable scenario. But then, this is the army that dug entrenchments in a dead forest next to Chernobyl, so concerns about how this tactic would affect their own soldiers may be way down the charts.

The bigger concern, seeing what Russia has done so far, is that it could also throw one of these up-to-Hiroshima sized weapons into a Ukrainian city using one of the same Iskander missiles its already using to attack those cities on a daily basis. The world should definitely think about how it would respond to that. 

Such concerns have to weigh heavily on world leaders, especially Zelenskyy, and some form of this threat is behind every little squeak issuing from the vicinity of Putin. But that doesn’t mean anyone should start taking his threats seriously and letting them affect planning.

When you have the Boogie Man on the run, you don’t give him a chance to get his sh#t back together.