Putin takes his nuclear threat one step higher

Two hours of invective and accusations against the West, riddled with threats, peppered with nationalist proclamations, punctuated Russian President Vladimir Putin's speech in what was intended to be an immediate response to the visit to Kiev by his US counterpart Joe Biden and an early commemoration of the first year of this war.

Lacking the ability to show off the blazon of a decisive victory in the "special military operation" against Ukraine, the Russian leader has once again flexed the muscle of destruction, which he predicts for NATO if its members persist in continuing to assist Ukraine by supplying the weaponry with which, at the cost of the country's destruction and titanic human effort, Ukrainian troops are keeping the far superior Russian army, doubled by the fierce Wagner militias, at bay.

Putin announced the suspension of his participation in the New Start disarmament treaty. An agreement signed in 2010 by then presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev limiting the nuclear arsenals of the two countries to a maximum of 1,550 warheads each. This in turn represented a 30% reduction on the previous limit, as agreed in 2002.

Known as the Start III Treaty, Putin had already taken steps last summer that violated the agreement by unilaterally suspending US inspections of planned Russian silo platforms, claiming it was a response to the Americans' "continued obstruction of Russian inspections on US soil".

In keeping with his self-exculpatory rhetoric, after describing Washington's rejection of his inspection demands, Putin claimed to be "forced to suspend its participation in the Strategic Offensive Arms Treaty". But in his message, he stressed that "we are not withdrawing from the treaty, we are suspending our participation". All of this before dropping a request for negotiations on this treaty, and making it conditional on knowing what the member countries of the Atlantic Alliance want, expressly citing France and the United Kingdom. This message can be interpreted as an attempt to sow doubts among the allies, as if the Kremlin were hoping to open fissures within NATO.

In his speech, in which Putin has not ceased to blame the West, including the accusation that the West started the war, the Russian president has raised the intensity of his threatening rhetoric, wielding his "determination to use all resources, including nuclear weapons" to win this war. Indeed, he has also announced that he has given orders to prepare for new nuclear tests and has decreed a permanent state of alert for the Russian army's specialised forces to be ready to act at any moment.

While not denying that a cornered Putin would rather die by killing than fold his sails on his invasion, the impression given by his speech is that he may be playing out his last few rounds. While US, British and French intelligence services did not give much credence to his previous threats, this time they are scrutinising even more carefully whether what they observe through their sophisticated spying means corresponds to the Kremlin's words. The reiteration that Moscow desperately wants to give the country something to be proud of on the first anniversary of the war lends credence to manoeuvres that would prelude a major offensive.

It is true that if Russia has suspended the implementation of the Start III treaty, this could serve as a justification for Russia to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.  A risky move because Joe Biden has just reiterated to Volodymyr Zelenski during his surprise visit to Kiev that if Putin tried, the US would unceremoniously annihilate all Russian conventional forces in Ukraine. Biden is also warning Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, a country that Putin could use as a launching pad for attacks against his southern neighbour.

Also needing to fire up his troops, Putin, who also accused the West of unleashing World War III, stressed that "Russia is invincible" and that it will achieve all its goals "step by step".

Certainly not the least feared was Joe Biden himself, who, in his meeting with the authorities in Poland, which hosts the largest number of Ukrainian refugees - more than 6 million of the 9 million who had to flee their country - described US support for Ukraine a year after the Russian invasion as "indestructible".

In turn, both NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and EU diplomacy chief Josep Borrell have hit back at Putin's accusations. The former leaves the door ajar to Putin being realistic and reconsidering his participation in the New Start treaty. As for Borrell, he did not bite his tongue, stating that Putin's announcement "is further proof that Russia has done nothing but demolish the complex security system built after the Cold War".

We are in any case entering a decisive phase, that is, the moment when both sides will decide whether to choose in the dilemma between a long and costly war or to use the alleged threat of nuclear war as a pretext to sit down and negotiate. Whatever it is, it affects us all, as has been the case since the beginning of this contest, behind which nothing less than a radical change in the rules by which the world has been governed since 1945 is at stake.