Western leaders fear Vladimir Putin is planning a huge escalation of Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine with a deadly nuclear strike — as UK officials believe he now realises war was a ‘colossal mistake. By Jamie Phillips.

The views of the western administrative state:

Putin is understood to be planning land-grab of four regions said to have voted overwhelmingly to join Russia after sham referendums in which residents were marched to the ballot box at gunpoint.

Hastily arranged votes had taken place over five days in the four areas — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — that make up about 15 per cent of Ukrainian territory.

But there is concern that Putin is planning a nuclear attack west of the regions that would create a radiation dead zone and put a halt to Ukraine’s so far successful counter-offensives.

Another fear is that Russia is preparing a strike on western interests such as maritime communications cables.

Officials in the UK believe Putin, as well as Russian population, now understand the war was a ‘colossal mistake….

Meanwhile, Western leaders have blamed Russia for the ‘deliberate’ sabotage after the Nordsteam pipeline suffered ‘unprecedented’ damage off Sweden.

The Kremlin has denied any involvement in the explosions, dismissing the suggestion as ‘stupid ‘. But Russia does have the capacity to carry out such an attack.

Putin commands the world’s largest fleet of spy submarines including one — the Belgorod — that was specifically designed to attack undersea cables, and has easy access to the Baltic via Kaliningrad and St Petersberg, where its newly-developed fleet of underwater drones is also based.

The Belgorod is the mother ship for a single nuclear-powered mini-submarine, used for operations on the seabed

If Nord Stream was indeed targeted by Moscow then we can’t avoid seeing it as Putin preparing for a global war, in which supplying gas to Europe would be directly aiding his enemy.’

Putin has lost the conventional war for Ukraine, because his troops don’t have their hearts in it. So now he is going to defend his gains with nukes, and dare the world to do anything about it.

Maybe the Nord Stream sabotage — whoever did it — is the next stage in a cold “hybrid” war aimed at hurting economies.