This week the Kremlin is signaling that further escalation remains on the table, with some Russian officials reportedly discussing nuclear weapons as a last resort, Bloomberg reports. The war is costing Putin more, delivering less, and straining Russia’s economy. So, right on cue, he reaches for his favorite weapon of all: the nuclear threat. The nuclear card is Putin’s favorite scare tactic and it’s past time for the West stop falling for it.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The Kremlin’s nuclear playbook was in use almost from the start of the war. In February 2022, Putin put Russia’s nuclear forces on heightened alert, which was a blunt warning to the West not to intervene. By September, he was again invoking Russia’s nuclear arsenal, warning that the West should take his threats seriously. Washington took the threat seriously. In October, President Biden warned that nuclear “Armageddon” could be looming, and Western media eagerly amplified the most alarming scenarios of how Russia’s war could spiral into World War III. The Kremlin kept the nuclear pressure campaign going. In June 2023, Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko publicly confirmed that Russia had begun transferring tactical nuclear warheads to Belarus. In March 2024, French President Emmanuel Macron kept the door open to sending troops. Moscow responded with the nuclear alarm bell, with spy chief Sergei Naryshkin warning that Europe was pushing the world toward nuclear war and in May Russia announced plans for nuclear drills in response to the possibility of deeper Western involvement in Ukraine.