Bloomberg: Putin Is Preparing For An Escalation
- 27.08.2026, 6:00
Sources close to the Kremlin are intimidating the West with nuclear weapons.
Putin believes that peace talks on Ukraine have reached an impasse and is preparing for an escalation of hostilities, while those close to the Russian president are increasingly concerned that he will ultimately resort to the use of tactical nuclear weapons. This is reported by Bloomberg citing sources close to the Kremlin.
According to the agency’s sources, Russia plans to intensify ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv in the near future, including on the city center, as well as on infrastructure facilities in other Ukrainian cities.
The negotiations, which had been ongoing for about a year and a half under the mediation of Donald Trump’s administration, have effectively ended in failure, Bloomberg sources say: both sides are back where they started. Moscow considers Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory—which have affected dozens of oil refineries, ports, and marketplace warehouses—to be an attack by NATO, since the alliance provides Kyiv with weapons and intelligence.
Despite economic pressure, the gasoline crisis, and strikes on logistics hubs, Putin has no plans to end the war, Bloomberg’s sources emphasize. According to them, the current phase of tit-for-tat strikes has not yet reached the peak of military escalation.
An increasing number of Russian officials are concluding that Putin could use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine as a last resort, according to sources close to the Kremlin cited by Bloomberg. Calls from pro-war hawks advocating such a move have grown louder recently, the agency notes, as losing the war appears to be an absolutely unacceptable scenario for Putin.
With diplomacy over Ukraine having come to naught, Moscow sees few alternatives to escalation, four sources close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg. The Kremlin still hopes that Steven Whitcroft and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s special envoys, will bring new proposals to Moscow, though expectations for a breakthrough are very low, the sources said.
So far, there are no signs that Putin is preparing to use nuclear weapons, Bloomberg notes. Russia’s partners, including China—which has issued a stern warning to the Kremlin against such a move—are strongly opposed. The Biden administration has warned of the consequences of a nuclear strike by Putin, recalls Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former advisor to three U.S. presidents.