The war in Ukraine is at a critical juncture. Kyiv has been given permission to use western-supplied Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles against targets inside Russia. It did so as soon as that permission was granted, with strikes against Russian military facilities in the Bryansk and Kursk regions.
Moscow’s response to the strikes has been twofold. First, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, approved changes to his country’s nuclear doctrine to lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. It also launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile – Oreshnik, or Hazel Tree – at an arms factory in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
This – so far carefully calibrated and choreographed – tit-for-tat indicates a further, gradual escalation of the war effort by both sides. It has been accompanied by a steady advance of Russian forces in eastern Ukraine and a continuation of the Kremlin’s efforts to cause maximum damage to Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.
