By Michael Snyder - June 15, 2023

What is it going to take to wake people up? Russia is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, and there is lots of talk in the Russian media about using such weapons to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine. The theory is that once the Russians show that they are willing to use tactical nukes, the U.S. and the other western powers will back off. But that won’t be what happens. Instead of backing off, the Biden administration will respond by using U.S. tactical nuclear weapons against Russian targets in Ukraine. And once both sides have used tactical nukes, it is just a matter of time before the big nukes get used.

This war could have been avoided at the negotiating table long before it ever started, but that didn’t happen.

And we could still have a negotiated solution, but at this point both sides are not interested in peace talks at all.

So we will continue to steamroll down a road that leads to nuclear conflict. Both sides just continue to escalate matters over and over again, and even Vladimir Putin is admitting that this could easily cause “a Third World War”…

Putin, speaking at a meeting with Russian war correspondents in Moscow yesterday, said: ‘The United States pretends not to be afraid of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, but sane people there clearly do not want to take this to a Third World War.

‘In the event of a Third World War, there will be no winners, including America.’

But even though Putin realizes where things could be heading, he insists that peace talks are not an option.

In fact, he just said that this war will only end by “freeing the entire territory of the former Ukraine from the United States and Ukrainian Nazis”…

“We were forced to try to end the war that the West started in 2014 by force of arms. And Russia will end this war by force of arms, freeing the entire territory of the former Ukraine from the United States and Ukrainian Nazis. There are no other options,” Putin said.

“The Ukrainian army of the US and NATO will be defeated, no matter what new types of weapons it receives from the West. The more weapons there are, the fewer Ukrainians and what used to be Ukraine will remain.”

And importantly, he emphasized that “Direct intervention by NATO’s European armies will not change the outcome. But in this case, the fire of war will engulf the whole of Europe. It looks like the US is ready for that too.”

Did you catch that last part?

Even if NATO forces directly intervene in Ukraine, Putin says that “will not change the outcome”.

He is not going to back down, and he is not bluffing . . .

[SNIP]