Ex-NATO commander: ‘Putin is becoming quite desperate’

Retired Adm. James Stavridis, former NATO supreme allied commander for Europe, said Russian President Vladimir Putin is “becoming quite desperate” as the war in Ukraine continues. 

In an interview with radio talk show host John Catsimatidis on his show “The Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM, Stavridis dissected Putin’s Wednesday address to Russia, in which he explicitly threatened to use nuclear weapons and announced a partial call-up of the Russian military reserves, among other things.

Stavridis told Catsimatidis that he does not take Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine seriously, as he said the world would “entirely” turn against him. 

He said the world has heard Putin threaten to use nuclear weapons for the past decade, but the Russian president is not serious because he knows that even Russia’s allies, China and Iran, would turn against him. 

“No one is going to support a Russia that uses nuclear weapons,” Stavridis said. 

Stavridis, who served as NATO supreme allied commander for Europe, said he is not taking Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine seriously, as the world would turn against him.

He also said the annexation referendums in the Ukrainian territory that Russia has captured that Putin expressed support for in his speech are “nonsense” and no one will recognize the territories are part of Russia. 

The referendums began Friday in the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Russian-backed officials called for the referendums as Ukraine mounts a major counteroffensive in which it has retaken thousands of square kilometers of its territory. 

Stavridis additionally said Putin’s plan to implement a partial mobilization of up to 300,000 military reservists is flawed because “no one wants to be drafted.” 

The Russian Defense Ministry announced Friday that some citizens with jobs in areas like banking, telecommunications and information technology will avoid the draft after major backlash to Putin’s announcement of the mobilization. Russia also detained hundreds of protesters who were demonstrating against the draft. 

“There are major protests popping up in Russian cities,” Stavridis said. “It’s starting to have that Vietnam-era feel of a growing sense of civil discontent. I would score it a very bad week for Vladimir Putin.” 

He said negotiations to end the conflict will be complex, as he claimed Russia is in strong possession of about 10 percent of Ukraine where the sentiment is overwhelmingly pro-Russian. He said Putin would come to the negotiating table with that argument, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky would argue that Russia must give back all the territory it took because the invasion was illegal. 

“Our job is to give the Ukrainians all the tools they need so they can have the strongest possible position going into the negotiation,” Stavridis said. “Then it’s up to Zelensky and frankly up to Putin.” 

He said he expects both sides will seek negotiations in the next six to 12 months. 

Stavridis also said Putin is overestimating the influence he has from cutting off Europe’s access to natural gas from Russia. He said this method is Putin’s “last hope,” which he intends to result in Europe no longer sending weapons to Ukraine. 

Stavridis said only 20 percent of the energy Europe uses is natural gas. 

“It’s enough to make it a cold winter, but it’s not going to freeze the Europeans,” he said. “People are not going to be dying in their frozen houses. They’re going to have to set their thermostats lower. They’re going to have to wear sweaters. It’s going to be a colder winter that they’ll have to deal with, but I don’t think European resolve is going to crack in the face of Vladimir Putin.”