FLASH
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The risk of an all-out nuclear war is not a distant threat, but a very real possibility.
The warning comes from one of the leaders of the Russian opposition. Grigory Yavlinsky says Vladimir Putin's threats of a nuclear Armageddon between East and West are "serious".
Yavlinsky is a former Soviet-era power broker and founder of Russia's last liberal party.
"Considering the magnitude of the threat of nuclear war, this is all quite serious," he told The Sun.
According to him, Putin has just emerged from the instability of a coup attempt, the risk of a weakened Vladimir "must be taken into account".
The threat is not only to Ukraine, he warned, but a nuclear apocalypse "between East and West".
"I wouldn't say it's a threat for tomorrow, but as far as I understand it's already 50 to 50. This is a very real possibility that it could happen," Yavlinsky continued.
He explained that "Putin may be in a position to use nuclear weapons if he doesn't have the path to find a way out."
Chairman of the Yabloko party and 3-time presidential candidate, he is one of the very few political opponents of Putin who has not been exiled, imprisoned or mysteriously killed. Yavlinsky lives and works in Moscow and knows all too well the threat behind the wings.
"I'm thinking about him every day, every minute. We can stop the interview and anything can happen, but this is my place. I have worked in politics for more than 30 years and it is my responsibility and obligation to warn about the real danger as I see it", - said Yavlinksy.
Last week, President Joe Biden warned that the threat of a tyrant using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine was "real," but since then a lot has happened in Russia. Over the weekend, Wagner's boss Yevgeny Prigozhin led an armed uprising, vowing to topple Russia's highest power.
Putin used the words "insurrection" and "treason" as an air force helicopter crashed, an oil depot was blown up. Experts are keen to point out that a paranoid Putin in control of the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet cannot be ruled out as having his fingers on the button. As quickly as it began, the rebellion that was halfway to Moscow was extinguished after a vague agreement.
Putin, however, faced the biggest threat to his regime since he took power more than two decades ago. His aura of invincibility was shattered; his power weakened. Now the potential crisis of nuclear escalation is looming so serious that US officials, who admitted they had advance knowledge of Prigozhin's plans, were terrified that a nuclear-armed rival would descend into chaos.
Last September, when Putin ordered the first mobilization of troops since World War II, he proudly told his country: "If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will, without a doubt, use all available means to protect Russia and our people".
In two weeks in June, a Nobel Prize-winning Russian journalist counted 200 instances when Russian state television declared that the use of nuclear weapons "was possible." Dmitry Muratov, whose independent newspaper was forced to leave Russia, said: “200 times. In 2 weeks. It's starting to look like a dog food commercial. Will Vladimir Putin push the button, or not? None of us know."
This month, the Russian leader moved nuclear warheads to neighboring Belarus, bringing the nuclear threat ever closer to NATO's borders. It was an action that President Biden called "absolutely irresponsible".
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