BY JED JALECO DEL ROSARIO
LAST WEEK, there was news that outgoing United States President Joe Biden and other Western leaders allowed Ukraine to use their cruise missiles to attack Russian territories, as opposed to using them as purely defensive weapons.
Not long after, Russia reported that it was prepared to retaliate against any country that is participating directly and indirectly in Ukraine’s war effort.
The conclusion many drew from these announcements is that we are closer than ever to a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-Russia escalation that could lead to a nuclear exchange.
That hasn’t happened yet, so maybe they were not as serious as reports made them out to be.
From what I’ve seen and heard from the Russian and Russian-friendly sources, Ukraine was already lobbing NATO-made missiles into Russia. Western approval had simply formalized it. If this is true then the news about cruise missiles doesn’t change the overall picture.
Personally, I don’t think there will be a nuclear exchange in the foreseeable future. As I said before, Russia will win this war. I would even add that they had already won and that Ukraine is only delaying the inevitable. So they are unlikely to use nuclear warheads when they are winning.
The only scenario I can see where they will start using nukes is if NATO formally enters the war and I don’t see that as being likely.
However, the news about the cruise missiles is a close second.
There are conjectures that the approval for cruise missile attacks was given to prevent incoming US President Donald Trump from attempting to stop the war once he gets in next year.
If that is so, then this escalation is on NATO, but it’s all conjecture and does not change the situation.
Hopefully, Russian President Vladimir Putin will wait for Trump before he will try a tit for tat, because this news about cruise missiles has blurred the lines between proxy war and all-out disaster./PN
