Washington’s Latest Fear: The Risks of Cornering Putin

WASHINGTON — Senior White Home officers designing the technique to confront Russia have begun quietly debating a brand new concern: that the avalanche of sanctions directed at Moscow, which have gained velocity sooner than they imagined, is cornering President Vladimir V. Putin and will immediate him to lash out, maybe expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine.

In State of affairs Room conferences in current days, the difficulty has come up repeatedly, based on three officers. Mr. Putin’s tendency, American intelligence officers have advised the White Home and Congress, is to double down when he feels trapped by his personal overreach. In order that they have described a sequence of attainable reactions, starting from indiscriminate shelling of Ukrainian cities to compensate for the early errors made by his invading pressure, to cyberattacks directed on the American monetary system, to extra nuclear threats and maybe strikes to take the conflict past Ukraine’s borders.

The controversy over Mr. Putin’s subsequent strikes is linked to an pressing re-examination by intelligence companies of the Russian chief’s psychological state, and whether or not his ambitions and urge for food for danger have been altered by two years of Covid isolation.

These considerations accelerated after Mr. Putin’s order on Sunday to put the nation’s strategic nuclear weapons on a “fight prepared” alert to answer the West’s “aggressive feedback.” (Within the ensuing days, nonetheless, nationwide safety officers say they’ve seen little proof on the bottom that Russia’s nuclear forces have really moved to a distinct state of readiness.)

It was an indication of the depth of American concern that Protection Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III introduced Wednesday that he was canceling a beforehand scheduled Minuteman nuclear missile take a look at, to keep away from escalating direct challenges to Moscow or giving Mr. Putin an excuse to as soon as once more invoke the ability of the nation’s nuclear arsenal.

“We didn’t take this choice evenly, however as an alternative, to reveal that we’re a accountable nuclear energy,” John F. Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, mentioned Wednesday. “We acknowledge at this second of stress how essential it’s that each america and Russia keep in mind the danger of miscalculation, and take steps to scale back these dangers.”

Nonetheless, Mr. Putin’s response to the preliminary wave of sanctions has provoked a variety of considerations that one senior official known as the “Cornered Putin Downside.” These considerations heart on a sequence of current bulletins: the pullout of oil firms like Exxon and Shell from growing Russia’s oil fields, the strikes in opposition to Russia’s central financial institution that despatched the ruble plunging, and Germany’s shock announcement that it could drop its ban on sending deadly weapons to the Ukrainian forces and ramp up its protection spending.

However past canceling the missile take a look at, there isn’t a proof that america is contemplating steps to scale back tensions, and a senior official mentioned there was little interest in backing off sanctions.

“Fairly the opposite,’’ mentioned the official, who, like different American officers interviewed for this story, requested for anonymity to debate the inner debates amongst Mr. Biden’s advisers.

Actually, President Biden introduced expanded sanctions on Thursday, aimed toward Russia’s oligarch class. A lot of these named — together with Dmitri S. Peskov, Mr. Putin’s spokesman and one in all his shut advisers — rank amongst his most influential defenders and the beneficiaries of the system he has created.

Mr. Biden, studying a ready assertion and taking no questions, mentioned the sanctions have had “a profound impression already.”

A couple of hours after he spoke, S&P dropped Russia’s credit standing to CCC-, the credit-rating company mentioned in a press release. That’s far under the junk bond ranges Russia was ranked at just a few days after the invasion, and simply two notches above a warning that the nation was going into default.

It prompt that Mr. Putin’s effort to “sanctions-proof” his financial system had largely failed. And at the least for now, there isn’t a discernible off-ramp for the Russian chief wanting declaring a cease-fire or pulling again his forces — steps he has up to now proven little interest in taking.

At a information briefing on the White Home on Thursday afternoon, Jen Psaki, the press secretary, mentioned that she knew of no efforts to point out Mr. Putin a approach out. “I believe proper on this second, they’re marching towards Kyiv with a convoy and persevering with to take reportedly barbaric steps in opposition to the individuals of Ukraine. So now is just not the second the place we’re providing choices for lowering sanctions.”

But a senior State Division official, requested in regards to the debates contained in the administration on the dangers forward, mentioned there have been nuances within the administration’s method that time to attainable outs for the Russian chief.

Mr. Biden’s coverage, the official mentioned, was not one in all looking for regime change in Russia. The concept, he mentioned, was to affect Mr. Putin’s actions, not his grip on energy. And the sanctions, the official famous, have been designed not as a punishment, however as leverage to finish the conflict. They are going to escalate if Mr. Putin escalates, the official mentioned. However the administration would calibrate its sanctions, and maybe cut back them, if Mr. Putin begins to de-escalate.

And the official mentioned that as a result of Mr. Putin has now exerted such management over Russian media, closing down the final vestiges of impartial information organizations, he might spin some form of de-escalation right into a victory.

But that hope collides with the assessments of Mr. Putin’s instincts, a lot of that are based mostly on open, unclassified observations.

William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, was an early advocate of the view that the Russian chief deliberate to invade, and was not massing troops round Ukraine merely to realize leverage in some form of bargaining recreation.

“I might by no means underestimate President Putin’s danger urge for food on Ukraine,” Mr. Burns, a former American ambassador to Moscow, who has handled Mr. Putin for greater than twenty years, said in December.

Mr. Putin’s views on Ukraine are fiercely held. He appears unlikely to simply accept any outcome that doesn’t obtain his objective of bringing Ukraine nearer to the Russian fold. And, particularly after the Russian army’s poor efficiency within the first week of the conflict, he could also be involved that any whiff of failure might weaken his maintain on energy.

His technique in coming weeks, another American officers have warned in closed conferences because the disaster accelerated, might be to redirect the battle towards Washington, hoping to distract from the Russian forces’ assaults on civilians in Ukraine and rouse a nationalistic response to the actions of a longtime adversary.

If Mr. Putin desires to strike on the American monetary system, as Mr. Biden has struck at his, he has just one important pathway in: his well-trained military of hackers, and an adjoining group of prison ransomware operators, a few of whom have publicly pledged to assist him in his battle.

Tatyana Bolton, the coverage director for cybersecurity and rising threats on the R Avenue Institute, expressed confidence on Thursday that the monetary trade was prepared.

“The J.P. Morgans of the world spend extra on cybersecurity than many authorities companies,’’ mentioned Ms. Bolton, a former senior official within the Division of Homeland Safety whose household immigrated from Russia.

However she was involved in regards to the risk that Mr. Putin would lastly activate “pre-positioned malware within the vitality sector, as a way of getting again at america.”

Members of Congress have additionally raised considerations that Mr. Putin might unleash Moscow’s community of prison hackers, who’ve carried out ransomware assaults which have shut down hospitals, meat processing vegetation and the Colonial Pipeline community that carried almost half of the gasoline, diesel and jet gasoline on the East Coast.

“If the state of affairs escalates additional, I believe we’re going to see Russian cyberattacks in opposition to our essential infrastructure,” mentioned Consultant Mike Gallagher, Republican of Wisconsin, a member of the Home Intelligence Committee who served as co-chairman of an influential our on-line world fee.

One other risk is that Mr. Putin will threaten to push additional into Moldova or Georgia, which, like Ukraine, will not be members of NATO — and thus territory that the American and NATO forces wouldn’t enter. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is making Moldova one in all his stops on a reassurance tour that started on Thursday.

There are bigger worries, involving potential nuclear threats. Final Sunday, because the combating accelerated, Belarus handed a referendum that amended its structure to permit for nuclear weapons to be based mostly, as soon as once more, on its territory. American officers predict that President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko might properly ask Mr. Putin to put tactical weapons in his nation, the place they might be nearer to European capitals. And Mr. Putin has proven, twice this week, that he’s able to remind the world of the powers of his arsenal.

However the subsequent transfer for Mr. Putin is more likely to additional intensify his operations in Ukraine, which might nearly definitely lead to extra civilian casualties and destruction.

“It wasn’t a cakewalk for Putin and now he has no selection however to double down,” mentioned Beth Sanner, a former prime intelligence official. “That is what autocrats do. You can not stroll away otherwise you look weak.”