Putin’s plans to overtake Kyiv are not going smoothly, and U.S. officials are worried that his growing “frustration” will send him over the edge. As Russian forces try to encircle Kyiv, the Biden Administration is growing concerned that if Russia’s efforts to take Ukraine’s capital city aren’t as successful as Russian President Vladimir Putin hopes, the situation in Ukraine could spiral even further. U.S. intelligence has suggested that Putin’s likely plan is to encircle and then take Kyiv—with hopes and dreams of installing a pro-Kremlin regime in Ukraine—but things are already not going according to plan. The Russians have become “frustrated” in recent days in their efforts to take the capital city, a senior U.S. defense official told reporters in a call Monday. “They have been slowed and they have been frustrated by their lack of progress on Kyiv.” And with that frustration comes consequences, the official warned. (…) The alarming warning about Putin’s possible impending temper tantrum comes after Russia watchers have sounded alarm at Putin’s activities, from his rage-filled speech kicking off his invasion into Ukraine, to his disregard for human and civilian life in Ukraine, to placing his nuclear forces on high alert. Leaders around the world are increasingly realizing just how deranged Putin may be, and taking steps to show other countries just what a pariah he is. The Biden Administration announced plans to sanction Putin personally last week, putting him on the same level as other dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong-un. In the latest salvo, Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United Nations, compared Putin to Adolf Hitler, appearing to suggest Putin kill himself just like Hitler did a year after western Allied armies landed in Normandy, France, and pushed Germans back to Berlin. “If [Putin] wants to kill himself, he doesn’t need to use nuclear arsenal. He has to do what the guy in Berlin did in a bunker in… 1945,” Kyslytsya said Monday at a United Nations General Assembly meeting on Russia’s invasion.
via daily beast: U.S. Fears Putin Will Throw Mother of All Hissy Fits if Kyiv Attack Fails
