It's an observation often made, here and elsewhere, that the Ukraine-supporting West (as well as Ukraine itself) has many times crossed a large number of Putin's soi-dissant 'Red Lines' [1] since he mounted his inept, failed full-scale invasion of that country exactly four years ago tomorrow. Before and during this string of Putin-prodding acts of lèse-majesté, there was a head of steam building up among the weaker hands that he would respond with nuclear retaliation. Well, he never has - despite waving his wiener in that direction very demonstratively, several times.[2]
Well now. Last week, Ukraine's extremely effective campaign of deep strikes - sometimes very deep - into Mother Russia itself moved into new territory. In the past they've blown up entire ammunition depots (with explosions registering on earthquake detectors); seriously incommoded the Bear's very large petrochemical industry; and made some telling attacks on selected hi-tech armaments manufactories. Not to mention the astounding Operation Spiderweb. Oh, and very probably a handful of assassinations in Moscow.
But last week they excelled themselves:
... a FP-5 Flamingo missile strike against the Russian state-owned Votkinsk Machine Building Plant in Votkinsk, Udmurtia Republic (roughly 1230 kilometers from the international border). The Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Votkinsk Plant produces Yars-series intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), submarine-launched Bulava ballistic missiles (SLBM), 9M723-1 type Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and 9-S-7760 Kinzhal aeroballistic missiles. Russian opposition outlet Astra and a Ukrainian open-source intelligence project reported that the plant also produces Topol-M missile systems and Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM). Geolocated footage published on February 20 shows smoke rising from the Votkinsk Plant. Udmurtia Republic Governor Aleksandr Brechalov acknowledged that Ukrainian drones struck and damaged an unspecified facility in Udmurtia.
Here's the thing: as part of the sabre-rattling, a couple of years ago Putin updated his public policy on use of nuclear weapons, in a manner designed to convince the West that the threshold for a Russian nuclear response is now quite a bit lower. The new doctrine states that the use of nuclear weapons is possible in the event of the disabling of critical nuclear facilities, or massive attacks that pose such a threat.
So how does he classify last week's attack? If he was looking for an excuse to go nuclear - in the middle of the current "trilateral negotiations" - it rather looks as though he might find one.
I say this simply as an observation. Let's see if we all have further 'observations' in the course of the next days and weeks.
ND
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[1] Too many to list them all, but here are some (NOT including the demands that NATO withdraw from the 'new member states' etc etc made before the invasion):
- No Western arms of any kind to be supplied
- No MiG 29s from former E.Bloc countries
- No former USSR tanks ditto
- No weapons whatsoever from Germany
- No HIMARs
- No Patriot missiles
- No Storm Shadows
- No Western tanks
- No F-16s
- No strikes inside Russia
- No Ukrainian counter-offensives into territory already captured
He probably would have included "no 6-month incursions into Kursk" - if he'd imagined for one instant that the Ukrainians were capable of it. (Or given reliable reports by his ever-mendacious military.)
[2] Of course, Xi has told him to wind his nuclear neck in - an injunction that is probably still in force.
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