Inside Putin’s head: Paranoid? Calculating? Obsessed by the conspiracy theories of a rehabilitated Russian fascist?

Putin has raised the alert status of Russia’s nuclear weapons, to the astonishment of foreign policy experts in the West. It is a great gamble and risks not only accident but retaliation for relatively minor setbacks in the war in Ukraine. Not since the Cold War has such an apocalyptic threat existed.

This danger is heightened by the nature of today’s Russia. It is clear in Russia’s autocracy that Putin, and Putin alone, can decide whether to unleash missiles armed with nuclear weapons.