Russia-NATO Proxy War: Interpreting The Three Latest Nuclear-Related News Items

By Andrew Korybko

The appearance of three nuclear-related news items on the same day shows how serious the NATO-Russian proxy war is getting in the period between Russia’s victory in Artyomovsk and ahead of Kiev’s counteroffensive.

Thursday was unique in the sense that three nuclear-related items made the news. The morning began with the FSB revealing that it earlier foiled a Ukrainian terrorist plot that targeted two Russian nuclear power plants on Victory Day. By midday, Russia and Belarus signed an agreement for the former to store tactical nukes on the latter’s territory. Shortly thereafter, a source informed TASS of Kiev’s false flag intentions to blow up a nuclear fuel storage facility in Kharkov and blame it on Russia.

The first and third items show that Kiev continues planning nuclear provocations, both those related to sabotage and false flags respectively, which thus makes it a state sponsor of terrorism even though it’ll never be recognized as such by its Western patrons. In fact, they’re the ones that are responsible for its activities no matter how much they claim ignorance of its plots and deny their existence. After all, they could make it clear to their proxy that nuclear terrorism is unacceptable if they were truly opposed to it.

Instead, the West tacitly approves of these provocations since they’re considered a means for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia amidst those two’s “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” that the NATO chief declared in February and which is responsible for the conflict’s present stalemate. If the first is successful, then it could seriously destabilize Russia far behind the front lines, while the third could create the pretext for directly involving NATO in the conflict up to the Line of Contact (LOC).

To elaborate on the first scenario, the potential meltdown of one or both of those targeted nuclear power plants could result in a Chernobyl-like crisis, which could instantly divide Russia’s strategic attention by forcing it to redirect a considerable amount of it from the front towards the heartland. The West might have calculated that this could either soft up the front lines for Kiev’s counteroffensive or even coerce the Kremlin into unilateral concessions depending on the severity of the crisis.

Regarding the second scenario, the false information warfare narrative could predictably be that Russia supposedly used nukes out of desperation, which could serve as the so-called “trigger event” for NATO racing across Ukraine from Poland to Kharkov “in order to help deal with the fallout”. Should that happen, then Belarus’ southern border would be threatened by this hostile alliance, which would also then abut Russia’s western border too. Suffice to say, that would represent a major escalation.

The earlier mentioned news item about Russia’s deployment of tactical nukes to Belarus is driven by the polar opposite strategic intent of Kiev’s nuclear-related plots. The Union State’s two parties want to deter NATO from meddling in its westernmost Belarusian half, especially due to the possibility that this hostile bloc might seek to replicate this week’s proxy invasion of Russia in that neighbouring state. Deploying these arms there is thus meant to make them think twice about the wisdom of doing so.

Taken together, the appearance of three nuclear-related news items on the same day shows how serious the NATO-Russian proxy war is getting in the period between Russia’s victory in Artyomovsk and ahead of Kiev’s counteroffensive. Ukraine is plotting to escalate the conflict through unconventional nuclear means with the West’s tacit approval, while Russia hopes that deploying tactical nukes to Belarus can deter them from going through with these sorts of plots and others aimed at exacerbating the conflict.

The first two’s calculations seem to be to cripple Russia far behind the front lines through nuclear sabotage and/or create the pretext for directly involving NATO up to the LOC, with the second also serving to tighten the noose around Belarus via the bloc’s deployment along its southern border. The only reason why these dramatic plots are being pursued in the first place is because NATO can’t defeat Russia through conventional means due to their military-industrial parity.

Instead of accepting the present stalemate and pragmatically freezing the LOC, they’re still obsessed with defeating Russia because their leaders have staked their entire reputations at home on that outcome. None of them want to risk “losing face” before voters ahead of the next election by walking back their absolutist demands of Moscow by settling for a compromise, hence why they’re seriously considering such unprecedented escalations, which is a reason for even the calmest observers to worry.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.

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Categories: Analysis, Geopolitics, International Affairs

Tags: Geopolitics, USA, Russia, NATO, Ukraine, Nuclear War