Moscow says it will keep pushing its offensive in Ukraine, though NATO doubts Russia has the resources to make a significant breakthrough.
NATO’s top military officer has said Russia’s armed forces are incapable of any major advance.
“The Russians don’t have the numbers necessary to do a strategic breakthrough,” NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe Christopher Cavoli told reporters on Thursday.
“More to the point, they don’t have the skill and the capability to do it; to operate at the scale necessary to exploit any breakthrough to strategic advantage,” the general said.
If the Russians can’t succeed with numbers, will they escalate?
… to what?
Are you suggesting we’re still waiting for the real Russian military to show up?
Or are you suggesting Russian deployment of tactical nuclear weapons?
Or is there another way that Russia could further escalate I can’t think of?
I worry that they will escalate with nuclear weapons. Putin seems hell bent on starting WW III.
Nuclear weapons will lose all their remaining international support, as well as NATO launching full conventional strikes against every Russian military asset in the Black Sea and occupied Ukraine. Russia knows that use of tactical nuclear weapons will result in the total collapse of the Russian state, which is why theu are aonky going to use them if NATO troops coming knocking on the doors of St. Petersburg
Nuclear weapon usage does not result in WWIII, it’s an end the world button.
It depends on how retaliation goes. If the side that’s attacked uses conventional weaponry, we’re all fine.
So basically if Russia starts using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, NATO could respond with a conventional invasion of Russia and be done before noon. There’s scenarios where the rest of the world is fine if Russia uses nukes. But there’s no scenario where Russia is fine if they use nukes.
The only leverage Russia has to prevent all of NATO from joining in militarily is nukes. Using a nuke removes that leverage.
Exactly. Russia is not going to nuke anyone because they are not an ideological state like the USSR. They are a kleptocracy. Generals will not allow their grift to be interrupted, and it makes no money if you nuke something.
Russia has repeatedly stated than NATO troops on Russian soil will result in nuclear strikes of NATO targets. Russia has seen two different apocalyptic invasions in the past 200 years, and they are committed to inflicting that onto any realized threats.
There is no scenario short of Russian invasion of a NATO country that will wee NATO forces enter Russia or Belarus. Any Western response will be conventional, but total, strikes if Russian military assets in the Black Sea and occupied Ukraine.
Sure but if Russia is willing to open the nuclear Pandora’s box because they can’t make progress in their war in Ukraine, what do you think they will do if they are about to lose a war to NATO in an afternoon? I don’t see use of nukes here ending a different way even in the case where NATO initially responds with conventional arms only. Who knows though, I’m pretty damn far from an expert here but hopefully we never have to find out.