A strategic defeat for Russia is cataclysmic for Putin's hold on power in Russia." Russia "will be tempted to reach for the small nuclear weapons" if it senses it's lost the war in Ukraine, says General Sir Richard Barrons.

President Vladimir Putin boasted on Thursday that Russia had barely gotten started in Ukraine and dared the West to try to beat it on the battlefield. "Today we hear that they [the West] want to defeat us on the battlefield. What can you say, let them try...