President Joe Biden is not afraid of dragging the US into war with Russia and is willing to take risks to derail Donald Trump’s future presidency and any chance of a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine conflict, former CIA analyst Larry Johnson told RT.

On Thursday, the Russian military launched its new hypersonic ballistic missile, dubbed ‘Oreshnik’ (Hazel), against an industrial facility in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin described the strike as a warning to the West in response to “aggressive actions of NATO member states,” specifically Washington’s approval for Kiev to use its ATACMS missiles for strikes within Russia’s pre-2014 borders.

In an interview with RT, Johnson argued that Biden is escalating the Ukraine conflict to “embarrass” Donald Trump, who had claimed he could resolve the situation in 24 hours – a feat now unlikely to occur.

“The more extreme possibility is that he hopes to provoke a war that would impose martial law in the United States and make it impossible for Trump to take office on January 20th,” he claimed. “These people are not acting in the interests of US national security or world peace.”

There is little Trump can do at this point besides speaking out forcefully and demanding that the Biden administration “stand down,” but “they have nothing to lose.”

“They’ve already lost. It’s like someone diagnosed with a terminal illness; they’re willing to take risks they might not have taken before,” Johnson argued. “He’s going to be removed from office anyway in two months. Why does he care? I mean, he’s like a suicide bomber at this point.”

Johnson contended that the West completely misunderstands and underestimates both Russia’s capabilities and willingness to respond, due to a combination of “confirmation bias and reporting bias on the intelligence side.”

“Frankly, I’ve been amazed at the patience of the Russian authorities in putting up with this,” he said. “Let’s flip the tables: if Russia supplied Mexican narcotics gangs with missiles that were being launched into US territory along the Texas-Mexican border, or Arizona, or New Mexico, the United States would view that as an act of war and retaliate immediately. Yet, we think we can do that to Russia, and Russia is just supposed to sit back and take it.”

“Vladimir Putin was sending a very clear message to the United States and to Europe that Russia now has the ability to respond with a weapon system that the West is incapable of defending against, a weapon system that can reach to the United Kingdom, that can reach anywhere in Europe. And that Russia is prepared to do so if the British and the French persist in using missiles that are being launched into Russian territory,” he added.