He threatened to use nukes on any of us, depending on what
was just ahead. He wasn’t limiting it to the Ukraine.
At least that was my take on it. I believe it was in the
context of the West getting involved.
Well, actually Putin’s roadmap included Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden and Poland.
What is NATO if not a defense arrangement whose founding principle is, and must remain, that if any one of its members is attacked by Russia, they all are compelled to retaliate?
So by definition Putin’s statements indicate he was going to go from country to country in the former Warsaw Pact region on the basis that western European countries in NATO (and America) don’t have the balls to honor their own mutual defense pact.
After all, neither we nor Russia have upheld our solemn pledge to leave Ukraine sovereign and neutral in return for it handing back the Soviet nukes.