Photo: Ed JONES / AFP / Getty Images
For nine weeks, President Biden and Western allies have emphasized the need to keep the war over Ukraine inside Ukraine.
Now, fear in Washington and European capitals is that the conflict will soon escalate into a broader war, spreading to neighboring states, cyberspace and NATO countries suddenly facing a Russian gas cut.
In the long term, such an expansion could turn into a more direct conflict between Washington and Moscow reminiscent of the Cold War , as each seeks to undermine the power of the other.
In the past three days, the US secretary of defense has called for an effort to downgrade the Russian military’s ability to that he cannot invade another country in the years to come.
The Russians have cut or gas shipments to Poland and Bulgaria, which joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization after the collapse of the Soviet Union; Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, immediately denounced the measure as a “blackmail instrument”.
The explosions have shaken an area in disputed Moldova, a natural next target for the Russians, and gas depots and even a missile factory in Russia have mysteriously burned down or been directly attacked by Ukrainian forces.
Increasingly, the Russians are reminding the world of the size and power of their nuclear arsenal, an unsubtle warning that if President Vladimir Putin’s conventional forces face further losses humiliating, he has other options.
US and European officials say they see no evidence that the Russians are mobilizing their nuclear forces in the field of battle, but behind the scenes, officials are already discussing how they might react to a Russian nuclear test, or demo explosion. stration, over the Black Sea or in the Ukraine.
“Nobody wants this war to escalate more than it already has,” he said on Wednesday John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, when asked about Russia’s nuclear threats. “Certainly no one wants to see, or should want to see, escalation to the nuclear realm.”
US and European officials say their fears are based in part on a growing conviction that the conflict could “go on for some time,” as Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken recently expressed. the leaders of France, Israel, and Turkey, among others, have died out.
Both Ukrainian and Russian forces are digging in for the long haul , focusing on what they hope will be an artillery war in the south and east of the country, where Russia has focused its forces after a humiliating withdrawal from kyiv and other key cities.
“Putin is not willing to back down, nor Neither do the Ukrainians, for so there will be more blood to come,” said Robin Niblett, director of Chatham House, a British think tank.
At the same time, the American and European resolve to help Ukraine defeat the Russians has hardened, in part after atrocities in Bucha and other Russian-occupied cities became apparent, and even Germany overcame their initial objections and sent in artillery and armored vehicles. .
Seth G. Jones, who directs the European Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Wednesday that “ the risk of an escalating war is serious right now.”
“Russian casualties continue to mount and the United States has committed to sending more powerful weapons that are causing those casualties,” Jones said. Sooner or later, he added, Russia’s military intelligence service could start targeting those arms shipments within NATO borders.
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