The illegitimate Russian President Vladimir Putin managed to intimidate Western leaders, and this fear still affects Kyiv's interaction with partners.
Points of attention
- Putin uses nuclear threats to influence Western policy towards Ukraine.
- The Lithuanian diplomat emphasizes that Western leaders have 'succumbed to nuclear blackmail' and have slowed down their support for Ukraine since the fall of 2022.
- According to a former advisor to President D. Trump, the United States fell for Putin's bluff and limited aid to Ukraine.
- Putin's bluff is seen as the West's main mistake in its interaction with Ukraine, which has a negative impact on relations between sovereign states.
- Gabrielius Landsbergis reminds us that in the event of the use of nuclear weapons, Putin may have been 'bluffing', exposing the vulnerability of the West in responding to the situation in Ukraine.
Landsbergis recalled the West's main mistake regarding Ukraine
The West was truly frightened by the Kremlin's nuclear threats and sharply reduced its support for Ukraine since the fall of 2022.
This was stated by former Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis.
Assessing the main successes and failures of Joe Biden, who is leaving the post of US President, the Lithuanian diplomat called the main "mistake" that Washington "succumbed to Russia's nuclear blackmail."
And that was a very specific moment when we can say that everything went in a very bad direction. It happened in the fall of … 2022, when Ukraine succeeded in its first counteroffensive.
Gabrielius Landsbergis
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania
He recalled that after the Ukrainian Defense Forces deoccupied most of the Kharkiv region and liberated Kherson, everyone saw the strength of Ukraine and the weakness of Russia.
And then Putin pulled out his card and said he would use nuclear weapons if his army was on the verge of collapse. And then the leaders of the West literally threw their hands up in the air and said, "We can't do anything to counter this." And you could feel like someone had "turned down the volume" on helping Ukraine. And now we are in this doctrine. We are still in this doctrine.
The Kremlin's nuclear threats
Putin has managed to convince the Biden administration that he is actually prepared to use nuclear weapons in the event of a Russian military defeat in Ukraine. Recently, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that China, at Washington's behest, allegedly dissuaded Putin from using nuclear weapons.
Former advisor to the US President during the Trump administration, experienced American politician John Bolton, in a recent interview, directly stated that Putin was "bluffing" when he hinted at the use of nuclear weapons.
He admitted that the US "fell for it" and held back the pace and scale of its assistance to Ukraine.
