<div style="text-align: justify; "><b><span style="font-size: 1rem;">The chaos of the past week might be incorrectly comforting. Despite Russia’s continued disastrous handling of its war of choice in Ukraine, the conflict’s most dangerous moment may be nearing.</span><br></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">At some point this week, the Kremlin will likely declare that “sham” referendums in four partially occupied areas of Ukraine have delivered a mandate for their swift assimilation into what Moscow calls Russian territory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The referendums are illegal under international law, and Ukraine, the United States and the rest of NATO have already made it clear this move will have no legal standing and will lead to sanctions.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But it will happen nonetheless, and Russia will likely use the moment to amplify the central threat behind this charade, stated openly by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the weekend: that Moscow reserves the right to “fully protect” areas that have formally become its territory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Moscow’s threat is clearly nuclear. Putin has presented his bellicose rhetoric – warning last week that Russia would “make use of all weapon systems available” if needed – as a response to non-existent NATO nuclear threats.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">But his officials have been startlingly clear: they want the use of nuclear weapons to be considered a real possibility and, as Putin said, “not a bluff.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This has led to a chilling change in Washington’s messaging.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For months, Western officials waved away any suggestions that nuclear conflict was even a consideration. Now US President Joe Biden and his cabinet officials are forced to publicly send messages of deterrence and readiness to reassure their allies – and just about everyone else on Planet Earth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is truly discomforting to be living in a time when the US government feels it has to publicly warn a wartime Russia – one that is losing heavily and unexpectedly against a neighbor they always thought they could subdue at will – that using nuclear weapons is a bad idea. The principles of mutual assured destruction that brought a dark calm to the Cold War seems to have lapsed.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We are faced with a Russia that wants to project a madman image ready to lose everything – for everyone – if faced with losing in this war. Source: CNN</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>