by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:
Even though most Americans aren’t paying much attention at this point, the way that the war in Ukraine is evolving should greatly concern all of us. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his generals very clearly understand that they are in very big trouble unless they can draw the U.S. and other NATO powers directly into the conflict. All of Bakhmut is now under Russian control, and the Ukrainians continue to lose troops at a staggering pace. They are holding a losing hand, but if Ukrainian leaders can find a way to get the Russians to use tactical nukes or other weapons of mass destruction, that would change everything. Western powers would feel compelled to respond in kind, and then we really would have a truly apocalyptic conflict on our hands.
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In recent days, there has been a tremendous amount of hype about the coming “counter-offensive” that the Ukrainians have supposedly been planning…
Kyiv renewed its plea for operational silence around the long-awaited counter-offensive against Russian forces with a clip of heavily-armed soldiers pressing their fingers to their lips.
The sleekly-produced footage features masked front-line troops gesturing for silence amid the distant rumble of artillery and gunfire.
It ends with images of soaring F-16 fighter jets – long coveted by Kyiv as it seeks to boost its air defence against Russian missiles and drones.
But instead of trying to retake Bakhmut or any of the other areas of Ukraine that the Russians have captured, the Ukrainians have been focusing their attacks on Russia itself.
Long-range drones have been hitting targets very deep inside Russia, and on one occasion that even included the Kremlin.
And Ukrainian artillery has been relentlessly pounding Russian territory. The shelling has been particularly brutal in the Belgorod region…
Ukrainian forces continued to shell Russia’s border region of Belgorod overnight into Sunday after two people were killed the previous night and hundreds of children were evacuated away from the border, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
“Overnight, it was quite restless,” Gladkov said on the Telegram channel, adding that the Shebekino and Volokonovsky districts had suffered “lots” of damage from the latest shelling.
Shelling civilian targets in Russian territory is going to do nothing to help the Ukrainians regain lost territory.
But it is putting enormous pressure on Russian leaders.
Just imagine how we would feel if U.S. territory was being shelled. We would be calling on the White House to nuke the living daylights out of whoever was shelling us.
Well, that is exactly how millions upon millions of Russian citizens feel right now.
And what makes things even worse is that small “militia groups” have begun crossing the Russian border to conduct attacks on nearby cities…
The New York Times wrote on Saturday that “Shebekino, a town of 40,000 six miles from the border, has effectively become a new part of the front line as Ukraine has intensified attacks inside Russia, including on residential areas near its own borders.” This is all upending the lives of residents in the border region, akin to what already happened long ago on the Ukrainian side of the border. “The spate of assaults, most recently by militia groups aligned against Moscow, has sparked the largest military evacuation effort in Russia in decades,” the report underscored. The past days have witnessed area residents move into temporary shelters, including the large Belgorod arena in the oblast capital.
The “militia groups” that are performing these raids are actually using equipment that has been provided by the U.S. and Poland…
The Russian fighters aligned against Moscow who launched a cross-border raid from Ukraine into the Belgorod region of Russia last week used at least four tactical vehicles originally given to Ukraine by the United States and Poland, U.S. officials said, raising questions about the unintended use of NATO-provided equipment and Kyiv’s commitments to secure materiel supplied by its supporters.
Three of the Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, also known as MRAPs, taken into Russia by the fighters were provided by the United States and the fourth was from Poland, according to people familiar with the U.S. intelligence finding, which has not previously been reported. Those people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
And it is being reported that Polish fighters are among those that have been going across the border during these raids…
The Polish Volunteer Corps has published pictures, confirming it participated in the first armed raid into the Belgorod region, Russia, together with the Russian Volunteer Corps
Russian soldiers claimed earlier they heard some of the enemies communicating in Polish
This war has reached such a dangerous stage.
The Russians aren’t stupid. They know that foreign fighters now make up a very significant percentage of the forces that they are facing.
And if Russian cities continue to get shelled and raided, it is only a matter of time before Russian leaders lose their temper.
If the Russians decide to use tactical nukes, it really will be the beginning of the end.
So let us pray that cooler heads will prevail.
Meanwhile, things with China continue to get even more tense.
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