The British Economist magazine said that the risk of a nuclear catastrophe in light of the continuation of the Russian war on Ukraine does not seem imminent, but it seems worrisomely possible, after the world has undoubtedly crossed the threshold in which talk of a nuclear clash is no longer out of the question.
In the words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, atrocities like this "have now returned to the realm of possibilities", making the chances of the current conflict escalating into nuclear war greater than they have been for more than half a century.
Although one party to the war has a nuclear arsenal - the magazine adds - while the other Ukrainian party owned it on its territory during the Soviet period and until a short period of its independence in 1991 without having political authority over it, no one guarantees the commitment of the opponent who does not have nuclear warheads With restraint, especially since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which supplies Ukraine with weapons and mobilizes its forces in the region, has many of these deadly weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been keen to remind his opponents of the nuclear dangers. In a televised address at the start of what he called the Russian operation in Ukraine, he warned foreign powers that might try to impede the progress of the Russian military from "consequences they have never faced in its history."
On February 27, after the imposition of unprecedented banking sanctions by Western countries on his country, he also issued an order to put the nuclear deterrent forces in a "combat mode".
The simplest nuclear scenario is reflected in Putin's vision, in the event of an outright defeat in Ukraine, trying to tip the scales by launching a nuclear weapon.
Christopher Chavis, who served as the top US intelligence official in Europe from 2018 to 2021, noted that in several war simulations set up after Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014, Western military experts and officers playing Russia's sometimes chose a nuclear detonation scenario. At high altitudes, "it affects communication systems in a wide geographical area and makes the lights go out up to the borders of Oslo."
preemptive attack
One possibility for Russia in this context is to use a small nuclear weapon and justify it as a "pre-emptive attack" on non-existent Ukrainian weapons of mass destruction or claim that Kyiv used it, followed by demands for unconditional surrender backed by threats of more such attacks.
Another possibility - adds The Economist - is that Western countries may work on internal pressure to try to stop the bloodshed, especially if the war escalates in Ukraine using chemical weapons, for example.
The Economist concludes that Russia's false claims that Ukraine possesses such weapons may set the stage for a false operation that Russia will use to justify more harsh retaliation, and such tactics would sow terror among Ukrainian civilians and send a message to NATO that Moscow has no intention of stopping at any end, as it would This is "tremendous pressure on the Alliance to force the Russians through force on their attacks," asserts Oliver Meyer, a researcher at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy in Hamburg.