Politico/Fiona Hill: ‘Yes, He Would’: Fiona Hill on Putin and Nukes

We are already, she said, in the middle of a third World War, whether we’ve fully grasped it or not.

“Ukraine has become the front line in a struggle, not just between democracies and autocracies but in a struggle for maintaining a rules-based system in which the things that countries want are not taken by force,” Hill said. “Every country in the world should be paying close attention to this.”

Reynolds: And then there’s the nuclear element. Many people have thought that we’d never see a large ground war in Europe or a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia, because it could quickly escalate into a nuclear conflict. How close are we getting to that?

Hill: Well, we’re right there. Basically, what President Putin has said quite explicitly in recent days is that if anybody interferes in Ukraine, they will be met with a response that they’ve “never had in [their] history.” And he has put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert. So he’s making it very clear that nuclear is on the table.

NPR/Fresh Air: How Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine Changes The World As We Know It – Anne Applebaum/The Atlantic

Journalist Anne Applebaum has been covering the war in Ukraine for The Atlantic. “I don’t think that we will ever again smugly assume that borders in Europe can’t be changed by force,” she says. We talk about why Putin takes Ukrainian democracy as a personal and political threat — and how Stalin created a famine to destroy the Ukrainian national movement in the 1930s.

Radio Open Source: Russian Invasion

The panic building around Ukraine is now a deadly modern war in Europe. Vladimir Putin at midweek unleashed a full-scale air-and-ground assault by Russia on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, and many other points. It’s a compound global crisis as we put this program together. Collaborating with the Quincy Institute in a radio/podcast series we’re calling In Search of Monsters, we will get to some of the history behind the battle for Ukraine and the geo-politics around it. First, a hint of the pain all through it, with the writer Masha Gessen, an eminent activist with two passports, Russian and American. At home in two countries, outspoken in both, Masha reminds you that Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine this week is a devastation to the hearts and hopes of millions.

Substack/Niccolo Soldo: “Fuck it!” Russia’s Final Break With The West – US-Russian joint tactical victory, European and Ukrainian defeat

Celebrations have been taking place in the self-declared Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in what is almost universally recognized Ukraine. Having declared independence eight years ago, events have now forced Russia’s hand in which these two nascent entities are now recognized by Moscow, with all the protections that come with it. One cannot help but understand why these people are celebrating.

Another celebration is taking place in the USA. The State Department has achieved its main objective of seeing Nordstream 2 put on ice. American LNG producers are now popping champagne bottles as they can envision huge stacks of cash to be made by overcharging Europeans desperate for gas. The Military-Industrial Complex is chuffed as well, as the arms will continue to pour into Ukraine and into the NATO armies in its periphery.

Substack/Tenzer Strategics: This Is Our War: If We Don’t Fight It Now, We Will Lose It – Just Like All The Other Ones

In terms of defense, the fate of Ukraine is decisive not only for the people of that country, but for all those of Europe. There is a kind of security continuum between the NATO countries and Ukraine—and also Moldova and Georgia, and tomorrow Belarus. This security continuum is inseparable from our ideals of freedom and those of these countries.

The attack on Ukraine is an attack on every European country; every Ukrainian murdered by Putin’s regime is a murdered European—just as every Syrian child murdered by the same Putin was a direct attack on the humanity of which each of us is a custodian.

This is our war—and we know what it would mean to lose it in Ukraine. Our historical consciousness would be doomed to sink into ineptitude if we remain in the middle of the ford.