Weak western leadership and a sensationalist press corps are driving us closer to a Nuclear spring in Ukraine.

At this point, the chances of Russia winning a ground war in Ukraine are extremely low, and Putin must realize this by now.

Historically an invading force needs more than a 3 to 1 ratio (or more) of troops. Putin lacks these numbers, and his fighters clearly lack motivation (listen here). Russian Defense Technology is like AOL dial-up vs. 5G compared to Ukraine’s newly acquired arms, supplied mainly by America. And the Ukrainians aren’t messing around; they are an extremely motivated fighting force and continue to enjoy a steady supply of foreign volunteer fighters.

This, and financial sanctions, will inevitably force Putin to consider the nuclear option.

If you don’t think the Russian dictator will use nukes in Ukraine, you need to educate yourself on the history of Russian warfare, study Putin’s nationalistic rhetoric, and run the thought experiment of Russia dropping a tactical nuke on Kyiv.

If Putin nuked Kyiv tomorrow, the west would likely bend the knee.

Am I wrong? Prove it in the comments below.

Another unfortunate circumstance we all face right now is that America and Europe have no strong leadership.

America is divided and distracted politically, and we have a President who can’t even read coherently from a teleprompter, let alone think and plan strategically where Ukraine is concerned.

There is no Churchill-like figure in western Europe, so this encourages China, Russia, Iran, and others to start pushing boundaries. Spy balloon, anyone?

Then there is the press corps.

I think it’s fair to say that most of the free press has never been more polarized and untrusted by both American and European citizens and for a good reason. Have you seen Elon’s Twitter files?

The social media and news bias are authentic. This site saw its Instagram account with hundreds of thousands of followers deleted for no reason or recourse.

How we all got here is another story for another time, but we have a press more concerned with traffic to their sites because more traffic means more advertising dollars.

Collectively they continue to poke fun at the Russian bear, and this will not end well for anyone, especially Ukraine, unless American or European leadership comes up with a strategy that forces Putin out of Ukraine in a way that lets him declare a victory.

This likely means that eastern Ukraine, generally Russian leaning, will be permanently annexed into Russia.

Biden continues to play checkers while Putin plays chess with his finger on the nuclear button, and this is what keeps me up at night.