Escalation In Ukraine War Continues. How Long Before a Nuclear War?

The problem with escalation in warfare is that the belligerents quickly lose sight of who started it. Did the War in Ukraine begin with the launch of Russia’s special military operation on February 24, 2022?

The U.S. and NATO would certainly say that. Russia would say that Ukraine had been bombarding Russian-speaking populations in the Donbas region since 2014, that the war was well underway, and Russia merely intervened to protect the Russian speakers.

For that matter, did the war begin in March 2014 when Russia seized and annexed Crimea? Or did it begin in January 2014 when the CIA and MI6 instigated the Maidan Square coup which overthrew a pro-Russian president of Ukraine? What about April 2008 when George W. Bush announced that Ukraine should join NATO after Vladimir Putin has already said that was unacceptable and might cause a war?

You get the point.

We could keep going backward in time to point out claims and counterclaims of the Orthodox in the east and Catholics in the west with regard to what is now called Ukraine. In fact, this tortured history traces back to the reign of Prince Vladimir of Kiev in the tenth century.

With that kind of backstory, all we can say is that one side or the other is escalating today without being definitive about how it all began. The latest provocation, as described in this article, is one of the most dangerous.

Russian warships have fired warning shots at cargo vessels on the Black Sea near Ukrainian ports. This follows the breakdown of the Russian/Ukrainian grain deal that allowed a safe passage corridor from Odessa through the Black Sea and the Bosphorus to ports in Europe and Africa.

Ukraine abused the deal by selling most of the grain at high profits to Europe (instead of poorer Middle East and African countries) and by using the returning cargo vessels to smuggle weapons into the battle zone. Russia not only ended the grain deal but is now taking steps to interdict trade from Ukraine through the Black Sea in general.

This comes after Ukrainian attacks on the Kerch Bridge that connects Russia to Crimea. The Kerch Bridge carries civilian traffic only, but Ukraine has nevertheless attacked it for symbolic value. Attacking ships in the Black Sea is part of Russia’s retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on the Kerch Bridge.

And so, it goes. We’ll never get to the bottom of who started it. And if it all ends in nuclear war, we may not even be around to figure out how it really ended.

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