Putin, talking about nuclear weapons, may move from words to action - Reuters

If the West officially authorises Ukraine to beat its allies' weapons deep into Russian territory, Putin may go for a show of force, and since many of his attempts to intimidate the West with his "might" have failed, he is left with one more argument - nuclear weapons. This is what Reuters writes about .

In particular, the agency refers to Ulrich Kuehn, a weapons expert at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg. He believes that Putin feels that he is seen as weak and may send some kind of nuclear signal - for example, to test nuclear weapons to intimidate the West.

Russia has not tested nuclear weapons since 1990, and therefore a nuclear explosion would signal the beginning of a more dangerous era. .It would be a dramatic escalation of the conflict," he said.

Gerhard Mangott, a security specialist at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, also believes Russia could decide to test nuclear weapons.

They could detonate a tactical nuclear weapon somewhere in the east of the country to demonstrate what (they) mean when they say we will eventually resort to nuclear weapons," Mangott said.

Meanwhile, United Russia Duma deputy Andrei Kolesnik called for a nuclear bomb to be detonated at a test site in Russia to "make humanity think" about how destructive anything involving nuclear weapons can be, Russian propaganda outlet Lenta.ru wrote on Friday, 13 September.

There is no need to relax. We have to make a nuclear explosion somewhere, at some test site. We have nuclear tests banned now, but maybe people should see what this is really leading to, it's worth hearing," Kolesnik argued.

He also repeated Russian fakes that Ukraine is allegedly preparing a nuclear provocation.

Russia last tested nuclear weapons in 1990, after which the Russian Federation and the West signed a number of treaties banning such actions.