However that actuality apparently has not sunk in. If something, Mr. Putin has grown extra belligerent, focusing new hearth on Mariupol as Russian forces search to safe the entire Donbas area within the coming weeks. He has insisted to guests like Mr. Nehammer that he stays decided to attain his objectives.
Whereas Russian casualties have been excessive and Mr. Putin’s ambitions have narrowed in Ukraine, American intelligence assessments have concluded that the Russian president believes that the West’s efforts to punish him and comprise Russia’s energy will crack over time. With the assistance of China, India and different nations in Asia, he seems to consider he can keep away from true isolation, simply as he did after the annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Now, American officers are girding for what more and more appears like a protracted, grinding confrontation, and so they have encountered repeated reminders by Mr. Putin that the world is messing with a nuclear weapons energy and will tread fastidiously.
On Wednesday, after offering warnings to the Pentagon {that a} missile take a look at was coming — a requirement of the New START treaty, which has 4 years remaining — Mr. Putin declared that the launch ought to “present meals for thought for individuals who, within the warmth of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, attempt to threaten our nation.”
Actually, the missile, if deployed, would add solely marginally to Russia’s capabilities. However the launch was about timing and symbolism: It got here amid the current public warnings, together with by Mr. Burns, that there was a small however rising probability that Mr. Putin would possibly flip to chemical weapons assaults, or perhaps a demonstration nuclear detonation.
If Mr. Putin turns his sights on the USA or its allies, the belief has all the time been that Russia would make use of its cyberarsenal to retaliate for the consequences of sanctions on the Russian financial system. However eight weeks into the battle, there have been no important cyberattacks past the same old background noise of day by day Russian cyberactivity in American networks, together with ransomware assaults.
