While Russia is slowly making advances in Eastern Ukraine, questions loom as to how far President Vladimir Putin is planning to take his invasion of Ukraine. During a recent press conference, Putin claimed that nothing has changed and everything is going according to the plan: “I have formulated the overall goal, which is to liberate Donbas, protect its people and create conditions that will guarantee the security of Russia itself. That is all.” His deliberately vague responses implied that Russian attacks in other parts of Ukraine were meant “to distract” the Ukrainian leadership.

Some military experts are convinced that fierce Ukrainian resistance may be insurmountable, as long as it continues to be aided by the ongoing Western support. Appearing on the state TV show The Evening With Vladimir Solovyov last Friday, Andrey Gurulyov, State Duma deputy and a former deputy commander of Russia's southern military district, stressed that the West will continue to supply Ukraine with every conceivable type of weapons, “up to a nuclear bomb—just not to let us win.” He proposed re-creating the Cuban Missile Crisis, but this time with hypersonic weapons, in order to reach an eventual détente with the United States: “Our hypersonic weapons... should be brought to the near vicinity of the United States, with a flight time of no more than five minutes.”

Gurulyov candidly admitted: “That is the only scenario for us to be able to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine. Only a direct threat to the U.S. and the UK... will force all of them to the negotiating table... all of this is part of a greater plan of conducting not only a special operation, but World War III, which is for us the second Great Patriotic War.” He positioned nuclear blackmail as Russia’s golden ticket, urging the country’s leadership “to seriously think through the plans of how we can painlessly get to the next crisis that will be our ticket to the future.”

Host Vladimir Solovyov opined: “Thanks to the idiocy of NATO countries, the world can anticipate hunger and a big war.” His constant attempts to deter foreign support for Ukraine through threats of nuclear attacks against Western countries have become so overplayed that even fellow propagandists routinely wince and roll their eyes. Solovyov, who is reportedly purchasing military equipment himself to aid Russia’s war against Ukraine, is currently advocating total destruction of the country’s critical infrastructure. His theatrical threats are ringing hollow, but at the same time they are raising expectations.