This is speculation on my part, but I believe that World War III has begun. To this point, it has been a proxy war waged in Ukraine, but the effects are widespread. Many countries have contributed arms, supplies, training, and intelligence. Refugees are spreading across the Continent. Russia’s actions in the energy sector have created scarcity and sent prices skyrocketing.
The Ukrainians have defended their land effectively, surprisingly so given their asymmetric disadvantages. The have pushed Russian forces out of some formerly occupied areas and inflicted heavy casualties on the battlefield.
But Russia is not likely to agree to a ceasefire despite their losses. Mr. Putin places no value on life or property. He has drafted another 300,000 conscripts to be sent to Ukraine, as Russian men of fighting age attempt to flee their country. The Kremlin increased penalties for desertion and voluntary surrender, because they realize that no one wants to die fighting for Putin’s objectives.
Expect the conflict to intensify. In addition to the increased personnel, Russia is deploying weapons systems that it has purchased from Iran. Russia has staged a sham referendum in Eastern Ukraine asking the people there whether they would like their territory to become part of Russia. This is significant, because Russia’s constitution allows the deployment of nuclear weapons only in cases where Russia is defending its own territory. When Putin can claim, even illegitimately under international law, that eastern Ukraine is part of his own country, he will have the green light to deploy tactical nuclear weapons.
Don’t think that he won’t use them. The Russian military and its mercenary counterparts have demonstrated that there is no line that they won’t cross, no norm that they won’t break, no war crime that they will not commit. They’ve bombed hospitals, leveled cities, shelled apartment buildings and nuclear power plants. They’ve killed civilians without remorse or justification, often torturing them and mutilating their bodies. They’ve shelled humanitarian corridors to prevent aid from reaching civilians and to prevent escape from heavily shelled population centers. They have kidnapped Ukrainian citizens and sent them to concentration camps in Russia before relocating them thousands of miles from home. They have waged a barbaric campaign of depopulation, just as they did years earlier in Aleppo in Syria. When battlefield commanders come back to Moscow, Putin doesn’t reprimand them for their brutality. He promotes them.
Given that track record, I don’t see any reason by Putin would stop short of deploying nuclear weapons if he thought that they would work to his advantage.
