Putin could use nuclear weapons if he feels Russia is threatened - expert tells GB News

An expert has told GB News that it may not take a physical attack on Russia to make Vladimir Putin use nuclear weapons.

The UK has already accused the Russian government of war crimes, with the bombing of a maternity hospital in Mariupol being the latest atrocity in the campaign.

Western allies fear Moscow could go further and carry out a chemical attack, potentially under the cover of a “false flag” operation.

Defence Policy Analyst at The Centre for the National Interest, Harry Kazianis told GB News’ Mark Steyn: “The Russians have a military doctrine called escalate to deescalate, in other words they know they’ll lose a war against NATO.

“So what do they do? They have told us that any time that they’re homeland is threatened in any way, shape of form, they will use nuclear weapons at their discretion.

“What’s scary about this is they’re already starting to signal that maybe it doesn’t have to be an invasion.

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be a bomb dropped on Moscow or St. Petersburg.

“We are doing tremendous damage to their economy, depending on how you look at the estimates, we’ve already done about a trillion dollars in damage to Russia’s economy.

“At what point does Vladimir start to say ‘well I’ve already lost everything, maybe it’s time to go all in’ that’s what terrifies me."

Earlier, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the Government was “very concerned” about the potential use of chemical weapons.

“We’ve seen Russia use these weapons before in fields of conflict, but that would be a grave mistake on the part of Russia, adding to the grave mistakes that have already been made by Putin,” she told CNN.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the world should be “on the lookout” for the Russian use of chemical and biological weaponry.