Putin closes the proxy-war loophole

The logic of escalation has taken us another step closer to nuclear war.

Photo by Taine Noble on Unsplash

The Russian Federation will respond to attacks “from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation,” President Vladimir Putin announced in a meeting with his Security Council on Wednesday.

The statement follows weeks of deliberations in the US and UK over whether to allow Ukraine to fire missiles supplied by those countries into Russian territory.

Putin’s statement marks a change to Russia’s Basic Principles of State Policy on Nuclear Deterrence, signaling that the country will consider the US and UK legitimate targets for retaliation in the event of such an attack.

And it also marks a major shift in the governing logic of proxy war that has defined US-Russian relations for nearly a century.