Act before all hell breaks loose

With the Russia-Ukraine war set to enter the fourth week, the thin line between conventional warfare and a nuclear conflict is growing thinner with each passing day. Adding to the worries of NATO generals and leaders of the West, Kremlin spokesperson Peskov in an interview with a news channel on Tuesday, has said that Russia will use nuclear weapons…if its existence is threatened.

Statements from other world leaders have not been reassuring in the least with the UN Secretary General remarking a few weeks ago that a nuclear conflict, once unthinkable, is once again in the realm of possibility.

Russia has already unleashed its full military might and deadly arsenal on its little neighbour which include hypersonic missiles and phosphorus bombs with biological and chemical weapons looking a distinct possibility.

What has made the Russians really desperate to use all means possible, is the steely resilience of the Ukrainians, who, despite seeing their homes shattered and their dear ones blown to pieces, have made it known that they will not go down without a fight. And that makes the possibility of Russian president Vladimir Putin pressing the nuclear button all the more real.

Not that NATO is unaware of the brinkmanship being adopted by Putin, with US president Biden set to fly to Brussels to attend a NATO summit to discuss the response if Putin does the unthinkable.

The unleashing of nuclear force to subdue a resilient enemy has never happened after World War-II and for those familiar with the horrifying imagery from Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan after atom bombs landed on them in 1945, nothing would be more agonising.

It remains to be seen if Russia, knowing that a nuclear war will lead to deadly consequences from the West and leave the world a radioactive dump, will go to the extreme length to pulverize Ukraine into submission. But the war scene now is radically different from what it was weeks ago when most experts expected Ukraine to fold up in days.

With the war not going the way it wanted for the Russians, nothing can be ruled out at this juncture which also calls for urgent measures by world leaders to pull off a truce, whatever price it may extract, before the situation crosses the brink. That the Russians hardly care for the safety of citizens became evident when they attacked a nuclear plant in Ukraine triggering widespread fears of radioactive contamination.

Will NATO continue to watch helplessly while the Ukraine horror drags on, or will it put all its resources to work to broker peace before the war assumes hitherto unimagined proportions? Time is running out and the big question is whether Putin will unleash on Ukraine what the US did in 1945 to force the Japanese into submission by dropping atoms bombs on its key cities.

There is nothing fair or justifiable about this war like many others in the past and there will be no pieces to pick up if Putin does what the world dreads.