Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Having lost the Democratic Party’s nomination to his deputy Kamala Harris in July—who also lost the presidential election this month—and left with no second shot at the White House he could rule from only four years, the outgoing US President Joe Biden may now be digging the pitch for his predecessor-turned-successor Donald Trump in faraway Russia.
One of Trump’s key election planks was that he would make peace between Russia and Ukraine. With barely two months left in the office, a piqued Biden, is, therefore, trying to get even with his bitter foe by allowing Ukraine to use the American long-range missiles for attack deeper into Russia.
Not that Russian President Vladimir Putin is unaware of this Biden attempt to make life difficult for Trump. But he has to answer the challenge the fast-aging President, whose support emboldened Ukraine on the NATO membership issue and triggered the ongoing war, posed.
According to the media reports on Tuesday, Putin has okayed the broader use of nuclear weapons as Russia marks 1,000 days of the Ukraine war, which started on February 24, 2022, with the Russian invasion.
In a clear message to the West and Ukraine, President Putin on Tuesday signed a decree broadening the scope of Moscow using nuclear weapons on a non-nuclear state—read Ukraine—if nuclear powers support it.
This decision came after President Biden, as he packs his bags to leave the White House in January 2025, permitted Ukraine to use its long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russian territory.
Washington permitted Ukraine on Monday to use US-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to strike targets inside Russia for the first time.
Reacting swiftly, the Kremlin vowed on Tuesday to defeat Ukraine, stating Western support for Kyiv would have no impact on the conflict and that Western aid “cannot affect the outcome of our operation which continues, and will be completed.”
“The military operation against Kyiv continues,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He also said that aggression by a non-nuclear state (Ukraine) with the participation of a nuclear state (the US and the West) is considered a joint attack.
“Russia has always viewed nuclear weapons as a means of deterrence,” he said, adding, they would only be deployed if Russia feels “forced” to.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that Putin must not “get his way” in Ukraine. However, only in October, he said that he did not see an imminent danger of nuclear weapons from Russia despite “reckless and irresponsible” statements issued from there. He may have changed his stance at the instance of the Biden administration.
Moscow’s nuclear doctrine will also be extended to its close ally Belarus and reflects Putin’s swiftness to force the West to back down.
The media reported that the Ukrainian armed forces carried out their first strike in a border region within Russian territory with an ATACMS missile.
The war between Russia and Ukraine, the deadliest conflict Europe has witnessed since World War II ended in 1945, marked its 1,000th day on Tuesday. More than one million people have reportedly either died or been grievously injured so far. Cities, towns, and villages in Ukraine have been utterly devastated and lie in ruin. The loss of human life and material wealth keeps mounting in the war-torn country that fell victim to the West’s machinations against Russia.
Even before their war started, the two neighbors were suffering from diminishing populations. Their staggering death count due to the conflict will, therefore, have far-reaching demographic implications.