Putin Could Go Nuclear ‘If He Fears Defeat' - US

Washington Vladimir Putin could view the prospect of defeat in Ukraine as an existential threat to his regime, potentially triggering him to resort to using a nuclear weapon, the top US intelligence official has warned.

- Julian Borger

The warning came in an assessment from intelligence chiefs briefing the US Senate on worldwide threats.

The prediction for Ukraine was a long, gruelling war of attrition, which could lead to increasingly volatile acts from Putin, including full mobilisation, the imposition of martial law, and - if the Russian leader felt the war was going against him, endangering his position in Moscow-even the use of a nuclear warhead.

The grim forecast came on a day of continued fighting in the east and south of Ukraine, and Russian missile attacks on the port of Odesa, with the UN conceding that the civilian death toll from the war is likely to be far higher than the current official estimate of 3,381.

The US director of national intelligence, Avril Haines, told the Senate armed services committee that Putin would continue to brandish Russia's nuclear arsenal in an attempt to deter the US and its allies from further support for Ukraine. The shift of focus to the east and the south is most likely temporary rather than a permanent scaling back of war aims, she said.

The Russian leader 14 would not use a nuclear weapon until he saw an existential threat to Russia or his regime, Haines argued. But she added that he could view the prospect of defeat in Ukraine as constituting such a threat.