The incendiary statements of the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, speaking openly about the risks of nuclear war and pointing out that the danger that it could happen is enormous, adds yet another turn to the war in Ukraine and the invasion by Russian troops. When we are only a few months away from the one-year anniversary of the start of the war, the possibility of a quick resolution is receding, and winter, the dreaded winter, is now beginning to fall upon many European countries. "A conflict with conventional weapons between nuclear powers could degenerate into a nuclear war," Lavrov stated. All this happens at a time of the withdrawal of Russian troops, who, apparently, are losing more and more positions in Ukraine after an initial phase of military conflict in which they thought everything would be fine.
It is obvious that the current state of the war is not at all what Vladimir Putin imagined when he invaded Ukraine last February. The efforts of the Ukrainian army and civilian population have lessened the effects of the invasion, and the military support offered by different Western countries has led to a situation that many analysts did not foresee. The United States, Great Britain and France have provided Kyiv with sufficient military equipment that they have not only been able to defend their positions but to counterattack, thus confirming a very widespread opinion that the obsolete although abundant Russian war material has been as dramatic as it has been ineffective.
If, to all this, one adds the political and social cost that Putin is paying for a war that the Russian population does not understand and, moreover, is mostly against, in a very pronounced way among the younger age groups, those who end up comprising the great mass of those mobilized to go to the front, it is natural for the Russian administration to be nervous and try to harden its rhetorical tone. From the start it has been said that Putin could not afford to lose this war, as the already-existing social unrest and the power of the military in the face of humiliation could be a dangerous cocktail for his continuity in the Kremlin. As the war drags on - and certainly ten months was an unthinkable period at the beginning of the conflict - all the indicators, including the economic ones, do nothing but set off alarms among the international community. A defeat is something Putin cannot afford.
And neither is there any known diplomatic initiative underway in this context to allow us to expect a solution in this regard. The United States, perhaps the real winner at the current time, does not seem to be in a hurry to end the conflict, and the European countries, without a doubt the most negatively affected, do not have their own agenda or even speak with a single voice. The G-7 and G-20 meetings, the NATO summits, meetings of the heads of state and government of the European Union and the leadership of the European Commission have all failed to make progress in the direction of opening up hopes for an end to the war. With the conflict entrenched and without a diplomatic solution, what remains is simply to wait and not respond to threats. As was already seen in the projectile that fell in Poland in the middle of November, which was at first attributed to Russia before Ukraine acknowledged that it had been a mistake by its troops, any small episode could cause events to get out of control. For a few hours, Poland considered requesting help from NATO and invoking Article 4 of the treaty.
Fortunately, it went no further. But if it continues like this, all that the warmongering tone of Lavrov evokes may end up being a very grave danger for the West.