as a strong leader, he comes over as a broken lame duck dictator, and i think what he will need to do to regain basically his influence is act the strong man, and you could see him undertaking actions in ukraine such as being more provocative along nato s eastern and southern frontier. you could see him talking about national mobilization, and even rattling nuclear sabres, and all of these things are possible. when you think about it now, you have got russian regulars and you have prigozhin fighters that stayed with him, and other fighters quit and splintered out and the czechs have their own fighters, and uncertainty in the middle of a war, that s a lot of
and author of a new novel, accidental czar, the life and lies of vladimir putin. just to get your response there to news from lloyd austin speaking with his counterpart shoygu. we saw shoygu with vladimir putin touring facilities for mobilized troops in russia. they were well equipped, quite the contrary from what we had been reporting and hearing on ground there where soldiers were having to buy their own equipment and scarce resources. what do you make of the timing of this all? so the lines of communication between the u.s. and russian militaries are probably the most important channel that currently exists. there is a real precarious situation on the battlefield inside of ukraine. and a lot of worries about escalation. and given that vladimir putin has been rattling his nuclear sabres, given his attacks on infrastructure inside of ukraine and very mysterious attacks on
pentagon the pentagon official i spoke with today characterized it as sabre rattling. putin did this in february as well, right at the beginning of the invasion. this is the kind of talk that really alarms the biden administration and the united states has taken pains over the last few weeks to de-escalate and respond very carefully every time russian officials and vladimir putin start rattling their nuclear sabres. when you ask this question, katy, you are getting again, at the essence of what has kept the united states and nato countries out of this war, and that is at the end of the day russia has nuclear arms. his nuclear arsenal is in many ways all that vladimir putin has left, given how bismolly his
they would potentially have implemented a no-fly zone had russia not been a nuclear power. they re really, really concerned that any direct confrontation will lead to a war, an all-out war with a nuclear-armed superpower here. i think that s correct. i mean if this was some third-world dictator in the middle east, then we would have been in boots on the ground by now. but it is russia with 5,500 nuclear weapons and clearly putin is willing to rattle nuclear sabres and make coercive nuclear threats, and that really has constrained nato s options for intervention, including in regards to a no-fly zone. mm-hmm. absent that, though, let s look at the advances of russian troops on the ground and in some cases they re being repelled. we see it on the outskirts of kyiv. they re resorting, as a result, to longer-range missiles. they re firing from the sea into mariupol. they re not putting their boots on the ground as close to the
power here. i think that s correct. this was some third world dictator in the middle east, we would have been in boots on the ground by now. but it is russia. we have 5,500 nuclear weapons, and clearly, putin is willing to rattle nuclear sabres and makoersive nuclear threats. and that really has constrained nato s options for intervention, including in regards to a no-fly zone. absent that, though, let s look at the advances of russian troops on the ground. in some cases they re being repelled. we see it on the outskirts of kyiv. they re resorting as a result to long-range missiles. they re firing from the sea into mariupol. they re not putting their boots on the ground as close to the action as i m sure at this point they would have wanted. what does that tell you about the longer term picture here for russian forces inside ukraine? well, look, i think certainly