By Lyle Goldstein
With the latest news from Ukraine, the war seems only to escalate. Civilian casualties are growing apace, as the Russian Army places more Ukrainian cities under siege. The prospect of hunger lurks behind the awful artillery barrages. Peace talks seem to be going nowhere. Meanwhile, the global economy could be teetering on the brink of massive recession as commodity prices are spiking. Could it get any worse? Yes, unfortunately, it could get a whole lot worse.
A foretaste of the next step in escalation was the 13 March Russian missile strike against the Ukrainian town of Yavoriv that killed 37. That town, just west of Lviv, is a mere 10 miles from the Polish border and lies along one of the main roads from Poland to Ukraine. The message from the Kremlin was threefold: it would not spare western Ukraine, it has plenty more firepower to bring to bear, and it would not tolerate NATO countries pouring volunteers and weaponry into Ukraine. These developments are disturbing enough on their own, but Western strategists also need to carefully consider one more aspect of the deadly strike against Yavoriv – the not-so-subtle hint that Putin might resort to the employment of tactical nuclear weapons.
On the same day as the Yavoriv strike, the New York Times ran a story on the front page about increased European demand for bomb shelter building over concerns of nuclear war. In general, this possibility has been glossed over, but the nuclear shadows in the background of the Russia-Ukraine War are already evident and they need to be better understood, including by the wider public.
This piece was originally published in The Orange County Register on March 18, 2022. Read more HERE.