Today’s Russia/Ukraine Update
Image: RadioFreeEurope
☝️ Ukraine’s military said it destroyed a Russian-occupied port facility in the Azov Sea along with a Russian warship stationed there, as the conflict in Ukraine officially passed the one-month mark.
- During a summit of NATO leaders in Brussels, President Biden announced a series of sanctions targeting 300+ Russian ‘elites’; the G-7 and EU also unveiled new measures cracking down on Russian efforts to evade current sanctions.
- Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed (D-RI) said an unconventional biological, chemical or nuclear weapons attack could trigger a NATO response if it impacted neighboring countries.
- The US will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, according to Biden administration officials; over 10 million people have been displaced from their homes and more than 3.7 million have fled the country, per the UN.
How the invasion is impacting…
📈 Markets: US stocks recouped most of Wednesday’s losses, while oil fell 2.3% to roughly $112 per barrel. (Dow: +1.0% | S&P: +1.4% | Nasdaq: +1.9%)
- The Moscow Exchange rose yesterday in a limited trading session, its first since the invasion began. Foreigners were prevented from selling shares, which drew the ire of the White House.
🌾 Food: Western sanctions on Russia, the world’s biggest exporter of nitrogen fertilizers, have disrupted supply chains and dried up global supplies. Fertilizer prices jumped 10% last week and 40% from the previous month, per the Green Markets North America Fertilizer Price Index.
What if Putin Escalates to Nuclear Weapons?
From the Left
- 74% say they’re concerned that Russia may use nuclear weapons if NATO tries to interfere with the invasion of Ukraine.
- 23% say they’re not concerned about nukes.
Source → (Quinnipiac)
🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: These opinions take 1.79 minutes to read.
“We must assume that a man like Vladimir Putin is capable of anything, even the use of nuclear weapons… There are scenarios in which he might calculate diabolically that launching one or more nukes could keep him in power and save his skin…
Say the Ukrainians - who are fighting heroically against the surprisingly incompetent Russian invaders - come close to winning. Or that a hypersonic Russian missile strays into Poland, a NATO member. Or that the West delivers weapons to Ukraine that could tilt the war. Any of these twists could make Putin fear his imminent demise - and escalate.
His first strike would demonstrate intent. He could drop a low-yield bomb on an empty forest or the open sea, just to show he means business. As a next step, he could nuke a specific enemy weapons depot, army base or battalion - in any case, not yet an entire city. The variable yields of tactical warheads make such fine-tuning possible…
But would he? NATO, and especially the U.S., must now prepare for harrowing decisions after a Russian first strike. Should the West detonate its own low-yield nuke, to show resolve? Where would both sides go from there?
Once these weapons start going off, the risk of misunderstandings, errors, and accidents soars. A "limited" strike by one side will still feel cataclysmic to the other. And the missiles fly so fast, the other side would have only minutes to respond. The temptation to "use it or lose it" would rise…
The imperative… is to always align tactics and strategy…. Let's pray there are people left in Moscow who understand that."
“With Vladimir Putin engaged in ominous nuclear sabre rattling since the eve of his unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, a vigorous debate has been raging among nuclear experts over whether and when he might make good on his threats. Some argue that the Russian president may consider using tactical, or nonstrategic, nuclear weapons — which are smaller and can be used over shorter distances — to overcome a difficult combat situation or to bring the conflict to an end on terms he considers favourable. Others see potential for him to launch a limited nuclear strike against the United States or a Nato country if they intervene militarily on Kyiv’s behalf.
Although most experts agree that the overall risk of nuclear weapons being used in this conflict remains low, one of these scenarios appears more likely than the other. If Putin’s objective is the occupation of at least some parts of Ukraine, it is hard to see how the use of a nuclear weapon on the country serves his interests. The prospect for a limited nuclear strike against the United States or Nato seems, relatively, greater. Indeed, Putin has promised that anyone who stands in his way will face consequences “such as you have never seen in your entire history”...
While Putin may be confident in his ability to control the course of this conflict through veiled threats and signals, this is a dangerous fantasy. Such an approach could have deadly consequences for everyone.“
From the Right
- 65% say they’re concerned that Russia may use nuclear weapons if NATO tries to interfere with the invasion of Ukraine.
- 31% say they’re not concerned about nukes.
Source → (Quinnipiac)
🚀⏰ Ready, Set, Go: These opinions take 1.80 minutes to read.
“Crossing the Rubicon into nuclear war may have sounded inconceivable a month ago, but today it ranks as an outside possibility. That’s frightening enough, but the specifics of what experts believe Mr. Putin may be planning suggest even more troubling ripple effects well into the future.
[Most] experts agree that the potential for Russia dropping a large-yield “strategic” warhead in Ukraine, something that would almost certainly trigger a nuclear response by the U.S., remains close to zero. The more realistic possibility, they say, is a tactical weapon dropped on isolated Ukrainian forces, or even detonated over the Black Sea, as a way to shock the Ukrainians into surrendering…
Pakistan, for instance, has relied on tactical nukes to balance out the overwhelming advantage its arch-enemy India has in conventional forces. The strategic thinking is straightforward… the Pakistanis believe they can use tactical nukes for strikes on the Indian army without triggering nuclear Armageddon.
It’s a twisted logic, but it may also be what Mr. Putin is considering. The use of a tactical nuke in Ukraine, all the experts I spoke to unanimously agreed, should not trigger a reciprocal response from the U.S. or its nuclear-armed allies. Indeed, it should not even trigger a conventional military response, which could then escalate into an all-out nuclear war.
The prudent response to Mr. Putin, if he goes down the nuclear path, is for the world to further isolate Russia politically and economically… Given the stakes, the odds of the war in Ukraine leading to nuclear Armageddon remain exceedingly low. Even the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists have kept their Doomsday Clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the same level of threat it has been at since 2020.”
“The stunning fact of this war is that the Ukrainians have rescued Europe and the U.S. as much as NATO is assisting Ukraine. Kyiv’s stalwart resistance, at great human cost, has given the West a chance to stop the advance of Russian imperialism before it imperils NATO…
Yet Western leaders still seem worried of what would happen if Ukraine won. That’s especially true in the Biden Administration, which has taken many good steps—but typically under pressure from Congress or Europe, and typically late….
It’s hard to resist the conclusion that Mr. Putin has succeeded in intimidating Mr. Biden and other leaders with his threats of nuclear escalation. This concern may justify the decision not to assist Ukraine with a NATO no-fly zone, which could require U.S. planes to attack Russian radars and missile defenses inside Russian territory.
But it shouldn’t be an excuse for caution in doing everything short of that to help Ukrainians defeat Mr. Putin. If the nuclear threat works to stop NATO support now, the Russian will use it in the future against NATO proper. The essence of deterrence is credibility, which means persuading Mr. Putin that his resort to nuclear weapons in Ukraine will be met with a requisite response. The same goes for chemical or biological weapons.”
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