Caption: ‘Martyr’ Putin may unleash nuke, US think-tank warns
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Vladimir Putin’s ‘martyr’ complex may lead to him using nuclear and chemical weapons, a top think-tank has warned.

The Russian President’s dreams of seizing Ukraine and shattering NATO are ‘collapsing’ before him, the Heritage Foundation said in a report this week.

The year-long conflict shows no signs of ceasing, but the Kremlin has suffered several embarrassing defeats in recent months.

This has all whipped up Moscow ‘into a state of near hysteria’ as it positions the West as an existential threat to the nation itself.

The image of Putin pushing the button has loomed ever since Russia invaded Ukraine for a second time.

‘Russia’s nuclear threats have been stark and consistent,’ the report says.

Bakhmut has come to illustrate the deepening death toll and depleting resources in the Russia-Ukraine war (Picture: AP)

From Putin threatening the use of ‘all available means’ to towering missiles being carted around in front of cameras, the Kremlin has made its stockpile highly visible over the conflict.

The Heritage Foundation says a key trigger for Putin’s use of nuclear missiles would be Kyiv breaking Moscow’s bridge between Crimea and the Donbas.

‘At that point, Putin will make one of the most fateful decisions of the century: to use nuclear or chemical weapons or not,’ the authors wrote.

In 2020, the Russian government published a short paper stating four reasons why the Kremlin would use nukes.

This includes a pre-emptive strike; in response to a nuclear attack against Russia; retaliating against a threat that limits Russia’s control of its nuclear weaponry, such as a cyberattack; and when the ‘existence’ of Russia is threatened.

Putin last October said he would use weapons of mass destruction ‘to protect its sovereignty, territorial integrity and to ensure the safety of the Russian people’.

Vladimir Putin sees himself as a ‘victim’ of the West (Picture: AP)

This all comes from the decades-long belief in Russia that it is in a ‘global struggle’ with the West.

Russia’s tiny ‘security elite may be working itself into a state of near hysteria about the existence of a rival value system’, Western democracy, that it sees Kyiv as trying to adopt.

‘Putin sees Russia as a victim of the West, thereby embracing a martyr complex that finds its roots in Russian cultural history,’ the report notes.

‘He has spoken of the glory of dying for one’s country, and when asked, he links nuclear weapons and the Orthodox Church as the physical and spiritual defenders of the motherland.’

Though, analysts have long doubted that Moscow would ever resort to large-scale nuclear arms.

The biggest thing discouraging Russia from doing so is, rather simply, the wind. One gust could blow radiation straight into Russian territory.

Practice missiles have been fired in Russia over the war (Picture: Russian Defense Ministry Press O/UPI/Shutterstock)

‘Russian doctrine has long accepted the use of shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield and it is much more cautious about long-range strategic nuclear weapons designed to hit the enemy’s homeland,’ the Heritage Foundation adds.

‘Since 2010, however, Russia has increasingly portrayed the West as an enemy and appears to now accept tactical and strategic nuclear weapons as an option for deterring further escalation of combat.’

Putin could have a ‘higher tolerance threshold’ for casualties than Western leaders, at a time when the carnage in eastern Ukraine’s Bakhmut rages on.

Both sides have experienced a heavy death toll in the battle over a city without much strategic use that has come to symbolise the war itself.

If Russia captures the city, this would be Putin’s first major victory in more than half a year.

‘Putin’s dreams of Ukraine re-incorporated into Russia, of breaking up NATO, and of Russia leading a global anti-Western alliance,’ the authors add, ‘are collapsing about him.’

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He sees himself as a ‘victim’ of the West.