He may not know it yet but Putin’s been beat by Zelensky’s tiny little drone bombing of Russia/Putins Airforce. The tiny little drones beat Russia’s big bad bombers by damaging or destroying 40 of them…

It is embarrassing for Putin. There were Russian security lapses that allowed this to happen. Border security, for example. The Ukrainians brought these drones deep into Russian territory simply by driving them across the Russian border. Russian border inspectors failed to catch this, and that is an embarrassing lapse.

This puts major pressure on Putin to respond. There will be advisors who say, “We can’t afford not to respond, because if we don’t, this will just cement this impression that Ukraine and its allies in the West can just continue to push across all Russian red lines, and now they’ve crossed our nuclear security red line, which was clearly articulated in the revised nuclear-use doctrine. So, we can’t afford to simply ignore this.” That’s what they will argue.

Now, Putin is the ultimate decision-maker, and whether he agrees with that or not, we will have to see. But it’s very much in America’s interest to defuse this situation, because this is one that could escalate.

It would not necessarily escalate immediately into a direct confrontation between the United States and Russia. But it’s not hard to imagine a set of circumstances where Putin takes quite forceful action against Ukraine. And one example might be the use of these Oreshnik advanced missiles, which have maneuvering warheads with the ability to strike deep underground facilities in Ukraine, to go after Ukraine’s command and control capabilities, which I believe are located in hardened, deep underground structures, but may well be vulnerable to Russian strikes.

If Russia were to do that and create destruction in and around Kyiv would the United States simply step back and say, “Not our problem”? Would Trump be able politically to say, “Oh, well, not our battle, not my war. This is between Russia and Ukraine”?

I think he would be under tremendous political pressure to do something in response. And that is a dangerous situation. No question.

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