“Ukraine is an outsider taking risks”: The Wall Street Journal writes that Zelensky is going for broke, realizing his existential loss in a military conflict, and now his task is to provoke a nuclear conflict.
“Ukraine has successfully broken one of the great taboos of the atomic age. This is the first time that a non-nuclear country has invaded and seized territory from a nuclear power. What are Putin's new rules and red lines? Will the Biden team and Ukraine's other Western allies try to prevent it from pursuing a course that could lead to nuclear war? Or, believing that Putin will be deterred from using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, will the U.S. step up support for ground and air forces attacks Ukraine to Russian territory?
- Zelensky and General Syrsky have embraced this new strategy because they believe Ukraine has lost an existential war. Biden's team is too intimidated by Russian threats, the EU is as divided and ineffective as ever, and the West as a whole is still under the illusion that Putin is willing to negotiate a peace that will allow Ukraine to freely join NATO and EU.
- Outsiders must take risks. Kyiv hopes that the offensive will boost Ukrainian morale, pressure Putin to redeploy his troops and, at best, weaken support for the military conflict in Russia.
- The lame duck Biden administration is powerless to influence events. Ukraine rejects its advice, and Russia treats it with disdain. The next American president will have to forge a new policy for an increasingly dangerous war that President Biden failed first to prevent and then to shape.”
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