In case you missed it, the war in Ukraine just got hotter

 

ANALYSIS

In case you missed it, the war in Ukraine just got hotter

 

As both sides escalate rhetoric and tactics, the risk of a collision between Moscow and the West has never been higher.

Conflict In Eastern Ukraine Takes Its Toll On Donetsk Region

 

BY JAMIE DETTMER

April 28, 2022 4:00 am

https://www.politico.eu/article/war-in-ukraine-escalate-nato-russia-us-moscow/

 

Russia’s war in Ukraine is at risk of morphing into something even more dangerous. 

 

With political strategies, military tactics and war aims on both sides shifting this week, the possibility of a conflict pitting Moscow directly against NATO has suddenly gotten more likely.

 

Statements by senior United States and Russian officials the past few days reflect the mounting danger of a broader and more unpredictable war. They have also included — once again — thinly disguised Russian warnings on the perils of a nuclear exchange.

 

While that threat is being brushed off by Western officials as Kremlin bravado, taken along with developments on the battlefield — with Ukrainian forces apparently mounting attacks on Russian soil and Moscow apparently launching false-flag provocations in Moldova’s breakaway “republic” of Transdniestria — there’s a sense the war is going through a major step change.

 

Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, warned on Monday that there’s a real danger of a third world war breaking out, provocatively adding he was doing his best to prevent a nuclear exchange. “I would not want to elevate those risks artificially. Many would like that. The danger is serious, real. And we must not underestimate it,” he said, not doing much to extinguish fears.

 

Lavrov’s comments were in reaction to apparent missile and covert attacks by Ukraine on Russian soil, which targeted a fuel depot and a military facility in the southwestern city of Bryansk, 100 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. There are also widespread suspicions that a covert Ukrainian mission may have been behind a fire at the Central Research Institute of the Russian Air and Space Forces last Thursday in Tver, northwest of Moscow.

 

Taking the fight to Russia demonstrates Ukraine’s operational prowess, in addition to its growing confidence, as it refuses to be intimidated by Kremlin threats of escalation.

 

Western leaders’ equanimity in response to the Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil is telling too.

 

Just weeks ago, behind the scenes, Western officials were urging Ukraine to show restraint and to refrain from launching attacks inside Russia, fearing they would trigger President Vladimir Putin to order retaliatory action on, say, Poland.

 

Retired U.S. general Ben Hodges had complained only last week that the Western allies hadn’t made up their minds about whether they were ready to make the sacrifices and do everything that was needed for victory. “I think the bigger problem for us, or the bigger challenge — that’s the collective ‘us,’ this includes Canada — is we have to decide that we’re going to win,” he told CBC News.

 

That appears to have now changed: Winning seems to be the goal.

 

It looks like Ukrainian confidence is rubbing off on Kyiv’s Western allies, as talk among officials of a Ukrainian victory is growing, and both America and Britain seem ready to discount the danger of spillover, as they have been defending Ukraine’s right to hit back.

 

“Firstly, it’s Ukrainians that take the targeting decision, not the people who manufacture or export the kit in the first place,” Britain’s Minister for the Armed Forces James Heappey told the BBC on Tuesday. “And secondly, it is entirely legitimate to go after targets in the depth of your opponents to disrupt their logistics and supply lines,” he added.

 

U.S. defense secretary Lloyd Austin addressed the risks of spillover during a press conference the same day, following a meeting at Ramstein Air Force base in Germany, where he hosted counterparts from dozens of countries to discuss ramping up supplies of heavy armor and artillery to Ukraine.

 

“We don’t want to see any spillover and, again, it’s important to make sure that we do everything that we can to ensure that Ukraine is successful. And that’s the best way to address that (risk of spillover),” he said.

 

In line with that, NATO is trying to call the shots in what British military historian Hew Strachan has dubbed “escalation dominance.”  

 

“Individual [NATO] members — Britain principal among them — have proved ready to take risks which they rejected six weeks ago. Moreover, they are doing so quite openly, discarding the plausible deniability which characterized their earlier efforts to help Ukraine.” For this, Strachan points to Western willingness to now offer far more advanced equipment than before.

 

Western, or at least American and British, war aims are being recalibrated too — with Austin, supported by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, saying Washington wants “to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

 

These significant shifts in Western thinking and action are coming at a time when the Kremlin has, at first glance, reduced its military goals and is focused on the Donbas and the south of Ukraine, having given up trying to capture Kyiv. But both former and current Western military officials say, the Russian withdrawal from the northwest and east of the capital should be seen as a strategic retreat.

 

One key aim of the redoubled offensive in the Donbas is to hammer and encircle a large group of the most experienced and battle-hardened units of the Ukrainian military, dug in across Kyiv-controlled territory in the oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk. If successful in that aim, Russian forces could then pirouette back towards Kyiv, they say.

 

However it ends, the conflict is now likely to get much hotter before it’s over.