It's now Putin's Plan B vs. Biden, Zelenskyy's Plan A

After a confusing month, it is now clear what strategies are playing out in Ukraine: We're watching Vladimir Putin's Plan B versus Joe Biden's Plan A and Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Plan A. Let us hope that Biden and Zelenskyy triumph, because Putin's possible Plan C is really scary — and I don't even want to write what I fear would be his Plan D.

I have no secret source in the Kremlin on this, only the experience of having watched Putin operate in the Middle East over many years. As such, it seems obvious to me that Putin, having realized that his Plan A has failed — his expectation that the Russian army would march into Ukraine, decapitate its “Nazi” leadership and then just wait as the whole country fell peacefully into Russia's arms — has shifted to his Plan B.

Plan B is that the Russian army deliberately fires upon Ukrainian civilians, apartment blocks, hospitals, businesses and even bomb shelters — all of which has happened in the past few weeks — for the purpose of encouraging Ukrainians to flee their homes, creating a massive refugee crisis inside Ukraine and, even more important, a massive refugee crisis inside nearby NATO nations.

Putin, I suspect, is thinking that if he cannot occupy and hold all of Ukraine by military means and simply impose his peace terms, the next best thing would be to drive 5 million or 10 million Ukrainian refugees, particularly women, children and the elderly, into Poland, Hungary and Western Europe — with the purpose of creating such intense social and economic burdens that these NATO states will eventually pressure Zelenskyy to agree to whatever terms Putin is demanding to stop the war.

Putin probably hopes that although this plan most likely involves committing war crimes that could leave him and the Russian state permanent pariahs, the need for Russian oil, gas and wheat — and for Russia's help in addressing regional issues such as the impending Iran nuclear deal — would soon force the world to go back to doing business with “Bad Boy Putin” as it always has in the past.

Putin's Plan B, though, is running headlong into Biden and Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy's Plan A, which I suspect is playing out even better than he hoped, is to fight the Russian army to a draw on the ground, break its will and force Putin to agree to Zelenskyy's terms for a peace deal — with only minimal facesaving for the Kremlin leader.

Biden's Plan A, which he explicitly warned Putin of before the war started in an effort to deter him, was to impose economic sanctions on Russia the likes of which have never been imposed before by the West — with the aim of grinding the Russian economy to a halt. Biden's strategy — which also involved sending arms to the Ukrainians to pressure Russia militarily as well — is doing just that.

So, there you have the question of the hour: Will the pressure on NATO countries from all the refugees who Putin's war machine is creating — more and more each day — trump the pressure being created on his stalled army on the ground in Ukraine and on his economy back home — more and more each day?

The answer to that question should determine when and how this war ends — whether with a clear winner and loser or, maybe more likely, with some kind dirty compromise tilted for or against Putin.

Putin could opt for a Plan C — which, I am guessing, would involve air or rocket attacks on Ukrainian military supply lines across the border in Poland.

Poland is a NATO member, and any attack on its territory would require every other NATO member to come to Poland's defense. Putin may believe that if he can force that issue and some NATO members balk at defending Poland, NATO could fracture. It would certainly trigger heated debates inside every NATO country — especially in the United States — about getting directly involved in a potential World War III with Russia. No matter what happens in Ukraine, if Putin could splinter NATO, that would be an achievement that could mask all his other losses.

If Putin's plans A, B and C all fail, I fear that he would be a cornered animal, and he could opt for Plan D — launching either chemical weapons or the first nuclear bomb since Nagasaki. That is a hard sentence to write and an even worse one to contemplate. But to ignore it as a possibility would be naive in the extreme.