The day after.
I had just finished writing that in Ukraine there would be an escalation , that the escalation has arrived. And what happens is that Western public opinion continues in the operation of "denying as long as possible that it will lead to a nuclear war".
Will arrive'. Putin has no choice. Between Ukraine and Moscow there are some hills as a natural obstacle. The rest is an endless plain. If Ukraine joined NATO, Russia would be defenseless. Somehow, Ukraine must remain outside both the EU and NATO.
So Putin CANNOT jump back.
And it cannot leave Ukraine, because if you vote without Dombass and the various Russian-speaking parts that become independent, Ukraine would vote for a nationalist government that would immediately ask to join NATO.
Putin cannot back down.
Question: Can the US back off?
No. Because they have a China problem. And if the US proves to be ineffective in countering the taking of Ukraine, the day after tomorrow the Chinese take Taiwan, and then Bhutan. And so on.
So Biden can't back down, and he has to go after Putin and help any "insurgents" in Ukraine, in order to make the occupation feasible. Also, he'll probably try to make the toughest penalties possible.
But what is certain is that Biden cannot back down: what is true for Putin's Russia is, multiplied by ten, with China.
In summary, neither the US nor Russia can step back. Unless you sign a treaty like the one that was the Euromissiles, which Putin basically asked for, but Biden could not concede because the politics of the Democrats have not foreseen these things since the time of Cuba.
Moral: the US and Russia will escalate, perhaps in small steps, but sooner or later they will come to nuclear tactics.
Suppose the US and the EU make very hard sanctions that hit the Russians hard. At that point Putin has to respond, but it is clear that his boot-on-ground military capacity is already at the limit.
From how they carried out the deployment of the troops, the Russians were slow and cumbersome in preparation. The attack is lightning fast, but the deployment and projection are very slow. It means that if the scenario changed radically, the Russians would be trapped in Ukraine. Not for nothing are they hysterically defending the Black Sea by also concentrating part of the Baltic fleet in those waters. It is not for nothing that Putin is so threatening: a Romanian or Turkish intervention would be enough and Putin would have serious problems in guaranteeing the soldiers' return home.
This slowness in preparation is due to the fact that behind the new "operational" layer they have created remains a bureaucracy and a military administration that originated in the Soviet period.
They act fast but need a lot of preparation.
This invites the US and EU to do one thing: deploy mercenaries. Agility, deniability, few scruples.
So we have the Russian army at logistical limits, and a Russia whose economy is declining even more. And the mercenaries who break up in Ukraine. What can Putin do as an escalation?
But let's do the opposite: Russia is resilient and has time to organize a new wave, because everything is slow. The new wave drives out the mercenaries sent by the US and the EU.
How can Biden climb to scare the Chinese too and convince them that they are not joking?
In any case, therefore, within the next two "big moves", we will arrive at tactical nuclear power, whichever of the two throws the first bomb.
Neither can take a step back. This situation can only scale towards a tougher confrontation.
But the public will not be told.
When I said the Democrats wanted to get a war in Europe, people said it wouldn't go that far. For months and months the Italian press has repeated that it was just a bluff and "Putin does not agree". Knowing, on the contrary, that he can only take one step back.
When I wrote that the Russians would also descend from Belarus to aim for Kiev, passing through the marshy areas, and then end up fighting around the Chernobyl forest the same thing. Let alone. Alarmism! Pessimism! Don't disturb our business!
Now the situation can only escalate (because for Biden this war is a green light for China over Taiwan), but you want to deny yourself that it can get to nuclear weapons.
Until one day you will be told that you must not be outdoors, eat vegetables, sit on the grass, and all those things that after Chernobyl we heard ourselves say, at least we of the generation that was there and remembers.
I don't know, honestly, if this is going to end in Ukraine. Moldova is a Soviet republic, and is a "low hanging fruit" from the point of view of the Russians. It is too small to be a major buffer state, but too large to leave alone.
So I don't know if the nuclear escalation will take place now, during the battle for Ukraine, or during the battle for Moldova.
But it will happen. That place is too critical for Russia, and now that the US cannot allow invasions so as not to give the green light to China, confrontation is inevitable.
Now enjoy the river of useless details that will throw up on you to NOT make us understand what is happening.
Then, sooner or later, BUM.