Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian bombers have increased risk of nuclear war: Yorkshire Post Letters
William Loneskie, Justice Park, Oxton, Lauder, Berwickshire.
Ukraine's attack on Russian strategic nuclear forces deep within Russia could not have happened without assistance from the West, requiring satellites which Ukraine does not have, and experience of covert sabotage which MI6 and the CIA has gained over decades. We are already at war with Russia and that should elicit major concern, but it seems to be ignored.
The reason the Russian bombers were lined up in the open and not within hardened shelters is because that was a requirement of historic strategic nuclear arms treaties. The drone attacks will be seen as treaties being torn up, and therefore all aircraft will likely now be dispersed amongst numerous armoured hangars. If the West has broken the agreements will Russia step up a gear too? The shadow of nuclear war has never been closer since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963. Yet few people speak out and those who do are branded apologists for Putin.
While this audacious attack represents a massive propaganda victory for Ukraine it also increases the risk of a huge Russian strike once they have worked out who was involved and how the operation was carried out. Imagine if one of our nuclear armed submarines was hit by Russian drones while at anchor at Faslane. How would we react? Not well.
The danger of the strikes within Russia is that Putin will be pressurised to step up the war by hardliners in the military and commentariat who accuse him of being too cautious and taking too long to finish it. Any possibility of President Trump finding a peace agreement is now out of the window. A more likely scenario is a Russian offensive to take Odessa and cut Ukraine off from the sea.
You cannot understand the Russian invasion of Ukraine without understanding the history of the Eastern Front of the Second World War. As President Eisenhower, then Supreme Commander Allied Forces in Europe, wrote : "When we flew into Russia, in 1945, I did not see a house standing between the western borders of the country and the area around Moscow".