The nuclear threat might change the mood in Russia itself, stoking widespread fear | Peter Pomerantsev

Putin's propaganda glories in devastation but, like the Nazis, he is sowing the seeds of self-destruction

Do you want Total War?" Goebbels demanded of the Nazi faithful as the Second World War went south for Germany in 1943. He depicted a Reich surrounded by evil Jewish cosmopolitan conspirators bent on its destruction and he advocated for total mobilisation and to embrace a glory-in-death ideology.

Vladimir Putin delivered his own (partial) version last week. As the Ukraine war goes south for Russia, he claimed the defeats are the result of cosmopolitan conspiracies bent on destroying Russia and he had to announce (partial) total mobilisation. He called on Russians' sense of historical mission and implied Russia was ready to use nuclear weapons. This isn't a bluff," he insisted.

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