Ukraine’s top military chief warned Wednesday that a “limited” nuclear war between Russia and the West cannot be discounted, a scenario with grave global implications.
“There is a direct threat of the use, under certain circumstances, of tactical nuclear weapons by the Russian armed forces,” the Ukrainian commander in chief, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny wrote in an article published by Ukrinform, a state-run media outlet. “It is also impossible to completely rule out the possibility of the direct involvement of the world’s leading countries in a ‘limited’ nuclear conflict, in which the prospect of World War III is already directly visible.”
Zaluzhny also acknowledged for the first time that Kyiv was behind strikes deep inside the Russian-occupied Crimea Peninsula in August. The air bases and ammunition depot that were hit were in areas previously thought to be out of range for Ukraine — but were part of its strategy to shift “the Russian Army’s center of gravity,” Zaluzhny wrote.
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With the fighting all but certain to continue into 2023, Ukraine has to make the war “even sharper and more tangible for the Russians and for other occupied regions, despite the massive distance to the targets,” Zaluzhny wrote.
He called the Crimean strikes a “convincing example” of Kyiv’s calls for allies to send longer-range weapons for its outgunned soldiers. Moscow, he said, can hit 20 times farther. The military chief’s assessment comes as Ukraine’s armed forces claim to be recapturing small areas in counteroffensives in the country’s south and east — fighting that is taking a steep toll on Ukrainian soldiers, who are facing heavy losses against Russia’s more advanced weapons and technologies.
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Zaluzhny’s warning follows weeks of international alarm over a potential disaster at Europe’s largest nuclear facility, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine. Russian authorities control the plant, with more than 1,000 Ukrainian workers trying to keep it running and hooked up to their country’s power grid despite frequent shelling.
The U.N. atomic watchdog agency on Tuesday called for a safe zone there to prevent a nuclear catastrophe. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he supported the idea if it meant Russian troops would leave. Each side has accused the other of firing rockets and heavy artillery around the plant. (MSN)
