Ian Bremmer

And when he tells the Germans, if you provide tanks and if you allow these weapons to go long range into Russia, there'll be hell to pay,

And he does nothing against them, nothing credible.

So I fear that there's also, just as there is a part of Putin that now sees that he is in a position where he might need to negotiate for a ceasefire, there's also a part of Putin

that feels like he's in an environment where he needs to show that he's much tougher, that he's much more willing to exact pain on NATO than he has been historically, that there will be real consequences, especially for President Trump, who he knows

is very scared of world war three is very scared of getting into a war himself and of course if the optimistic take is that russia is now more likely to go into a ceasefire the pessimistic take is that russia is now much more likely to escalate severely and what that means i fear

is more likely to consider a use of a tactical nuclear weapon against Ukraine that is and that's why this is so important it is so it's so critical that we that we really think all of this through and we get it right that is deeply unsettling obviously

The realistic take is that this is an escalation, but it's not a game-changing escalation yet.

that Putin will be careful, more careful about his forces than he has been.

He will be more respectful of Ukraine's capabilities than he has been.

And that he will up the attacks on Kiev and exact more civilian damage to Ukrainians around the country.

He'll try to assassinate some senior leaders, some, you know, major defense leaders, that kind of thing.

Maybe he'll try to pull off something spectacular against Ukrainians officials when they visit other countries, that kind of thing.

But he doesn't seriously consider a nuke.

because he knows that that would not just radically alienate and unify the Europeans.

And he doesn't know what it will do with Trump, even though it's probably his sense that it will make Trump more distant and hands off and try to end the war than fight against Russia.

But he also knows that it will seriously antagonize his most important ally.

And that is China.

The Chinese really don't want the Russians to make this worse.

And they would be very, very opposed.

to him using a nuclear weapon.