CRAZED Defence chiefs have told Vladimir Putin that if his invasion plan fails, he will unleash even more horrific firepower on Ukraine.
Military leaders fear that when the Kremlin despot adopts heinous means to pull himself out of a hole, civilian bodies will pile even higher.
Lt Gen Sir Jim Hockenhull, Britain’s Chief of Defence Intelligence, said the frustrated dictator has now embraced a tactic of attrition.
“This will result in more civilian casualties, the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure, and the escalation of the humanitarian situation,” he stated.
Putin now has a number of levers to pull in order to save his battleplan and win the war at any costs, according to Ben Wallace.
KEEP SHELLING
Putin will very definitely follow the Russian textbook and intensify his bombing campaign on Ukrainian cities, according to the Defence Secretary.
He suggested he’d “blow the dust off the old Soviet theory and resort to encirclement, followed by relentless bombardment and siege” in an essay for ConHome.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss also cautioned that Russia is using peace talks as a cloak for more heinous crimes.
“I mean, if a country is serious about discussions, it doesn’t indiscriminately bomb civilians that day,” she told The New York Times.
Ms Truss went on to say that as Putin’s progress in Ukraine falters, he would resort to ever-worse measures.
“We’ve already seen the employment of indiscriminate tactics.” “Of course, we must be prepared for any eventuality,” she added.
After expending their finite stock of high-precision missiles, Russian soldiers have resorted to utilizing clumsy cluster strikes that cause massive civilian casualties.
Even when aimed at hostile troops, the rogue “dumb bombs” frequently miss their mark and fall on civilians.
Unguided missiles rain down on residents in war-torn Chernihiv, according to footage provided by the Ministry of Defense yesterday.
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
Mr Wallace warned that Putin could use heinous chemical weapons to terrorize the Ukrainian people.
“Either using a false flag operation to try to excuse greater bloodshed, or as a straight military technique, similar to how we saw Sarin gas utilized in Syria,” he stated.
Over the course of several years, the Kremlin backed the Syrian autocrat while he slaughtered civilians with chemical weapons.
The use of nerve agents and toxic gas for military purposes constitutes a war crime, and it would strengthen the case for Putin’s trial at The Hague.
EXPAND THE WAR
Mr Wallace speculated that Putin would try to entice other countries to join the conflict in order to give him a pretext to crank up his atrocities.
“Putin may believe that the only way out of the hole he has dug for himself is to strike out and hope that other countries would join in the conflict, giving him a pretext to escalate,” he said.
“It would be dangerous to try us,” the Defence Secretary warned, adding that the west will respond with a “strong response.”
Boris Johnson has consistently declined to engage in direct conflict with Putin, claiming that doing so would precipitate World War III between Russia and NATO.
At a critical juncture, the PM is set to hold private talks with Joe Biden.
ESCALATE NUCLEAR THREATS
Western diplomats have warned Putin that he may try to scare the West by flexing his nuclear muscles.
He put his nuclear arsenal on high alert soon after waging war on Ukraine, and he may dangle the threat of a strike again.
“As this war and its repercussions gradually erode Russian conventional strength, Russia will likely rely more on its nuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength to its internal and foreign audiences,” a Pentagon official said.
“Escalation is something we remain concerned about,” a Western official added.
“And we keep a very close watch on all of those areas where there could be escalation, which of course isn’t limited solely to the nuclear domain, but could involve cyber attacks.
“It could involve the use of chemical or biological weapons.”
