Source: Selwyn Duke

"What does Vladimir Putin have to do to convince Washington that the Ukraine crisis is a preliminary skirmish in what might be a nuclear war?" So asks astute commentator David Goldman (a.k.a. Spengler) and fellow writer Uwe Parpart, sounding an alarm that should make everyone take notice. In an Asia Times piece titled "N-war risk real; Biden's living a dangerous fantasy," they warn that after threatening to use nuclear weapons, "Putin and his high command reportedly have [now] decamped to secret bunkers."

Meanwhile, barely noticed is that while explaining away his statement that American troops were heading for Ukraine, Joe Biden revealed on Monday something else troubling: What he meant was, he said, those American soldiers would be training Ukrainian troops in Poland — a NATO country.

"In other words, they are now targets in Poland," writes commentator Thomas Lifson (who gets a "hat tip" for all this article's sources). "Amidst all the other gaffes, this [revelation] has barely been noticed, except, of course, by the war planners in Moscow."

As to the first part of this story, Goldman and Parpart write:

What does Vladimir Putin have to do to convince Washington that the Ukraine crisis is a preliminary skirmish in what might be a nuclear war? On February 23, Putin warned of nuclear war. On February 19, he conducted a full-dress drill of Russian ballistic missile forces. On February 27, he put Russia on a nuclear alert — which remains in effect.

Joe Biden didn't get the message.

Then on March 29, Moscow sent a red-alarm signal to the West by leaking news that "Putin and his high command have decamped to secret bunkers, following a Kremlin statement that Russia would use nuclear weapons to counter an 'existential threat,'" the Daily Mail reported, citing investigations by journalist Christo Grozev.

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That Daily Mail piece reports:

New evidence has emerged Vladimir Putin and his highest ranking commanders are running the war in Ukraine from top secret nuclear bunkers.

Movements of planes used by top Kremlin officials show Putin may be in a hideaway near Surgut, in western Siberia, it has been claimed.

His defence minister Sergei Shoigu — who has been mysteriously absent for several weeks, sparking rumours about his health — is believed to be in a bunker near Ufa in the Urals, 725 miles east of Moscow, according to investigative journalist Christo Grozev….

The suspected use of the high security nuclear bunkers is concerning as it leads to suggestions Putin may be prepared to deploy nuclear weapons, a move that would lead to inevitable reprisals.

Frighteningly, Biden and his handlers have been doing nothing but escalating this situation. Biden said over the course of three days recently that the United States might use chemical weapons (i.e., against Russia) if Moscow employs them, that American troops were heading for Ukraine, and that the administration seeks to oust Putin from power. (This, not to mention that Senator Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., stated a while back that the Russian leader should be killed.)

It's the second of the above statements that led to the little noticed revelation. As left-wing AntiWar.com writes:

President Biden appeared to reveal on Monday that the US is training Ukrainian troops in Poland.

Biden made the comments when trying to explain a recent gaffe. In Poland on Friday, President Biden told members of the 82nd Airborne Division that Ukrainians were "stepping up" against the Russian assault and said, "You're going to see when you're there," suggesting that the US soldiers would be entering the war zone.

Explaining his comments on Monday, Biden said, "We were talking about helping train the troops in — that are — the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland. That's what the context."

"I was referring to with — being with and talking with the Ukrainian troops who are in Poland," he added .

With NATO expansion a sore point for Russia and Ukraine being a "red line" nation for Putin, this could make Poland a legitimate target in Moscow's eyes and spark a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia.

Lifson adds further perspective while writing about Putin's reported retreat to the nuclear-proof bunker:

Biden foolishly called for regime change with the now infamous 9 words, "for God's sake, this man [Putin] cannot remain in power." From the standpoint of Vladimir Putin, that is an existential threat. Having been branded a war criminal, and watching the seizure of assets of Russian oligarchs, there is no graceful retirement to the French Riviera like some deposed murderous third-world oligarch. If Russian forces are doing as badly as our media claim, then Putin may well feel cornered. Gaddafi rode a bayonet at the end, and Ceaușescu was executed by a firing squad. Vlad has no intention of hiding in a spider hole like Saddam until found and hanged.

The Russian leadership surely knows Biden is senile and that his pronouncements cannot be taken at face value. But the bigger picture is that our pseudo-elites have been overcome with PDS (Putin Derangement Syndrome) and, as exhibited when peddling the Trump/Russia-collusion lie, have a seemingly irrational antipathy for the Russian leader (in contrast to how they pander to China's Xi Jinping).

"But passion governs, and she never governs wisely," warned Ben Franklin. Liking a leader of a nuclear-armed nation isn't a prerequisite for understanding that you must try to get along with him. Moreover, doing so requires that you not project your mindset onto him and instead put yourself in his shoes.

Have, for example, our pseudo-elites considered how insulted, offended, and humiliated NATO expansion has made the Russians feel? (Mikhail Gorbachev once mentioned this. And offended and humiliated people, emotional themselves, can act rashly.)

Perhaps not. Despite their complaints decades ago about "ethnocentrism," moderns (the leftist variety in particular) are almost pathologically unable to see matters from a perspective not their own. Even Ronald Reagan, upon learning that the Soviets thought the United States could launch a preemptive nuclear strike, was shocked and wondered if they could actually believe that. They could and, apparently, did, perhaps being as guilty of projection as anyone else.

Ukraine is Russia's backyard and not our fight, and wiser heads would deescalate and largely disengage from it. Instead, we're witnessing why Barack Obama once reportedly said of Biden, "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f*** things up." And in the fouling-things-up department, unfortunately, he now has a lot of company.