Putin official claims Nato planned the Ukrainian attack inside Russia

Despite denials from Washington, Nikolai Patrushev, a senior Kremlin figure, has said what Putin clearly believes, too, that Nato and the West collaborated with Ukraine to launch the incursions into the Kursk region of Russia with thousands of troops and tanks and other armoured vehicles. Patrushev is no ordinary Kremlin flunkey. He was until a recent job shuffle the secretary of the national security council of the Russian Federation and is a former director of the FSB, the huge national security service . From Moscow's point of perspective it must seem that the Pentagon was behind the Ukrainian incursion but as far as one can tell, the Kyiv government ordered the attack without telling anyone, including the US. But of course the fact that it has been so successful is totally down to the US and Nato because for months and months Ukrainian troops have been trained abroad to fight the Nato way, with combined all-arms manouevres. So the units sent over the border had everything to fight a battle with, such as air defence, logistical back-up and artillery. But that doesn't mean Kyiv sought the advice and expertise of the Pentagon before launching the raid. Reportedly, Washington was as surprised by the dramatic incursion as Moscow was. Patrushev, however, and undoubtedly Putin, too, believes it was all preplanned by the US, and this is potentially dangerous because Putin has always said he might turn to other means (tactical nukes) if he judged Russia to be under an external existential threat. But for Putin to admit to the Russian people that he had failed to prevent such an existential threat would be such an admission of failure on his part that I seriously doubt he would say it. Using tactical nukes would be his ultimate leadership failure. It would also undermine if not destroy his carefully engineered strategic partnership with China.