The Russians keep warning us that launching long-range missiles provided by NATO into Russia could spark a nuclear war, but that hasn’t done any good. In fact, more ATACMS missiles provided by the United States were just fired at the Russian city of Taganrog. By approving these long-range missile strikes, Joe Biden has literally brought us to the brink of nuclear war. Thankfully, there is one thing that is preventing Russia from unleashing a nuclear apocalypse right now. The Russians are counting down the days to the inauguration of Donald Trump, because they see him as the last best hope for peace. The Russians would very much prefer to avoid a nuclear confrontation, and they have been greatly encouraged by what Trump has been saying about the war in Ukraine. But if the Russians ultimately conclude that there is no way to avoid an all-out war between our two nations after negotiating with Trump, all bets are off.
While most Americans are focused on holiday festivities, events on the other side of the globe threaten to spiral out of control.
The Russians are telling us that they will “definitely” respond to the long-range missile attack on the city of Taganrog…
The Kremlin said Thursday it would “definitely” respond to a Ukrainian attack on a military airfield in its south that used U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia would respond to the ATACMS strike on a military airfield in the southern city of Taganrog, in the Rostov region.
President Vladimir Putin has previously threatened to launch Russia’s new hypersonic ballistic missile, named Oreshnik, at the center of Kyiv if Ukraine does not halt its attacks on Russian territory with U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles.
I don’t even want to think about what an Oreshnik missile could do to the center of the city of Kiev.
That would be a major escalation, and so let us hope that it does not happen.
But the Biden administration is warning that the Russians appear to be gearing up to launch another Oreshnik soon…
A U.S. official said on Wednesday that Russia could launch another hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine in the coming days, but Washington does not consider the Oreshnik weapon a game-changer in the war.
The good news is that the Russians are not going to use nuclear weapons at this stage.
Before they cross that threshold, they want to talk with Trump first to see if something can be worked out.
On Thursday, Trump was named Time Magazine’s “Person of the Year”…
Donald Trump once publicly speculated that Time would never name him the news magazine’s “Person of the Year.”
Now, the honor has been bestowed on him twice.
Time on Thursday named Trump as this year’s choice, recognizing the president-elect as the individual or group deemed to have wielded the greatest influence on global affairs “for good or for ill.” To celebrate the unveiling of the magazine cover, Trump will ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Trump sat for a wide-ranging interview with the magazine last month.
During his interview with Time Magazine, Trump had quite a bit to say about the war in Ukraine.
In fact, he specifically stated that it was a “foolish decision” for Joe Biden to authorize long-range missile strikes deep into Russia…
Joe Biden’s decision to permit Ukraine to use American-supplied long-range missiles on targets inside Russia was “foolish” and a “major escalation” in the conflict, according to President-elect Donald Trump.
“Anything can happen. Anything can happen. It’s a very volatile situation,” President-elect Trump said of the Ukraine conflict in an interview with Time on November 25, published on Thursday. “I think the most dangerous thing right now is what’s happening, where [Volodymyr] Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the president, to start shooting missiles into Russia. I think that’s a major escalation. I think it’s a foolish decision.”
For those of us that are hopeful that a nuclear war can be avoided, those are really good words to hear.
In addition, Trump also told Time Magazine that he personally disagrees “very vehemently” with what Biden has decided to do…
“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” Trump said in his interview with Time. “Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done.”
I think that it is clear that Trump wants to work out something with the Russians.
But will that be possible?
Our European allies definitely do not want this war to end. In fact, the secretary general of NATO just warned that “we are not ready for what is coming”, and he is urging western countries to prepare for war with Russia.
In Washington D.C., most members of Congress on both sides of the aisle do not want this war to end either. They want to keep fighting until Ukraine has won, but that simply is not going to happen.
Right now the Russians are gobbling up territory faster than they have since the early days of the conflict, and as long as they hold the “strategic initiative” they will not have an incentive to end the war until all of their goals have been achieved…
It’s a feature of our days that the Intelligence heads of the great powers have been acting in a quasi-diplomatic function, stepping out of the shadows of the world of espionage to engage in open discussion of the issues.
That applies to CIA’s director Burns, the Ukrainian Budanov, and also to Russia’s spy chief, Sergei Naryshkin.
Heading Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SRV), the current incarnation of the famous (and infamous) KBG, Naryshkin has said that Russia is ‘close to achieving all its war goals and holds the strategic initiative in all areas of the war.’
The Russians have been publicly telling us that in order for the war to end Ukraine must forget about joining NATO and there cannot be any NATO forces on Ukrainian soil when the conflict is over.
On the other side, the Ukrainians are insisting on being allowed to join NATO when the war has concluded, and they want a very large contingent of western troops on Ukrainian soil in order to prevent the Russians from invading again.
I don’t see how that gap can be bridged any time soon.
In addition, the Russians say that they want to keep all of the territory that they have captured, and that is a non-starter for the Ukrainians.
The Ukrainians are acting as if they still have a chance to win this war, but that doesn’t make sense. According to ABC News, about a million Ukrainian soldiers have died since the war began. It is also being reported that “hundreds of thousands” of soldiers have lost limbs. Ukrainian forces are completely worn out, and they are losing more ground with each passing day.
The only way that the Ukrainians could win this war would be for NATO to get directly involved in fighting Russia.
As I have repeatedly warned, once we are in a direct war with Russia it is just a matter of time before it goes nuclear.
For now, Donald Trump is the only thing standing between us and nuclear war.
Will he be able to successfully negotiate with the Russians and bring this horrible ordeal to an end?
We better hope so, because at this moment we are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been before.