Since Tuesday morning’s attack on the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant dam, retired British Army Col. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, OBE and former commander of UK and NATO Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Forces, has been telling any media that will listen, that Russian President Putin is preparing to use the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine “as an improvised nuclear weapon,” albeit “with plausible deniability” - meaning that the Colonel neither has any, nor needs any, proof for his allegation. Yet, he concluded, in yesterday’s London’s Telegraph, that the West “must act urgently to stop Putin…. Whatever it takes, we must ensure Ukraine prevails as quickly as possible, as there is still the spectre of escalation to chemical, biological and – terrifyingly – nuclear war.”
Earlier, his ravings to the UK tabloid, The Sun, on the same day the dam was attacked, already made for the juicy scaremongering headline in the New York Post: “`Terrorist’ Vladimir Putin is turning plant into improvised nuke, ex-military official warns.” Playing to his tabloid audience, de Bretton-Gordon suggested that “ultimately this is another nail in Putin’s coffin and we have to keep our fingers crossed the plant doesn’t go bang.” Don’t worry, however, he reassured; “I’m sure the high command in Kyiv would have war-gamed this situation.”
Appearing on the eve of British PM Rishi Sunak’s descent upon Washington, D.C., the Telegraph’s daily newsletter promotion of de Bretton Gordon’s oped, “We Are Now Dangerously Close to Nuclear War,” assured his American targets that, as he has been saying for months, Putin is desperate. His “`Special Military Operation’ is now in its death throes, with a rampant, confident, well-trained and equipped Ukraine army on the march.”
