Russian President Vladimir Putin is reaching the brink, and any little provocation that the west can incur on him now could push him over into abject madness.
Putin’s war in Ukraine is unwinnable and he knows it. He’s hoping for a Hail Mary at this point, as his military leaders continue to mysteriously drop dead in a sort of extreme psychological experiment aimed at forcing the rest of his armed forces to perform a miracle.
With each passing day, Putin is also triggered by the west’s continued and escalating support for Ukraine, forcing the Moscow Madman to make ever more worrisome global threats each time a new weapon system arrives at the front line.
In a potentially escalatory move, French President Emmanuel Macron became the first Western leader to supply Ukraine with tanks following talks with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
On Wednesday, the Elysée announced that French-made AMX-10 RC light tanks — which were designed in the 1980s and are currently being phased out of the French military — will be sent to Ukraine. The move is a significant change of position from the Macron government, which hitherto has shied away from sending armour to the war zone for fear of escalating tensions with Moscow.
France has already been supplying Kyiv (Kiev) with air defence systems, anti-aircraft missiles, artillery, and armoured vehicles, but President Macron has been one of the few voices in Europe to consistently call for continued peace negotiations with Vladimir Putin to bring the conflict to an end.
Putin has repeatedly suggested that this sort of western support is unacceptable, but when his troops are being investigated for tens of thousands of war crimes already, his conjecture really doesn’t mean too much.
