On the brink

Stretching 12 miles across the Black SeaA sea between Europe and Asia, with coastline in Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Bulgaria, Georgia and Romania. , the Kerch Strait bridge is the longest bridge in Europe. It took four years and $3.7bn to build. Inaugurated by Vladimir Putin himself, it is a display of Russian power over CrimeaA peninsula in southern Ukraine that was seized by Russian forces in 2014 and annexed to the larger country., the territory he seized from Ukraine in 2014.¹

On Saturday, a large section of the bridge was destroyed by a massive explosion. Ukraine has not formally claimed responsibility for the blast, but a senior Ukrainian official has stated that the country's intelligence services were behind it.

Experts say this was a humiliating blow for Putin. The bridge was a symbol of his power. And the attack is a bold statement of Ukraine's intention to take back Crimea. It was clear the Russian leader would have to strike back.

Sure enough, yesterday morning Russian missiles began to fall on Ukrainian cities. Observers said they were targeted at civilians and energy supplies. At least five people were killed in the capital of KyivThe capital of Ukraine..

It is a sign, experts warn, that the war is entering a dangerous new phase. The Ukrainians are pushing ahead, confident they can now throw the invaders out of their country altogether. Putin is rattled: he is ready to hit back with whatever he has, whatever the cost. 

At some point, they say, he will have to choose whether to accept defeat, or escalate the war.

That is why some fear we might be approaching nuclear war. Over the weekend, US president Joe BidenThe president of the USA, elected in 2020. warned that the chances of a nuclear armageddonAnother name for the world's end. It originally described the location of a battle during the Biblical apocalypse. are at their highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

The crisis took place in October 1962, when the USA discovered the USSRThe United Socialist Soviet Republic, the USA's main rival in the Cold War before it collapsed and broke up into a number of smaller states in 1991. had deployed nuclear missiles in CubaAn island country between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. , just 90 miles from US soil. US president John F KennedyPresident of the US from 1961 to 1963, when he was shot dead in Dallas. He was the fourth American president to be assassinated; Abraham Lincoln was the first. was advised to launch an airstrike to take out the missiles, and then invade Cuba.

If he had done so, it would almost certainly have triggered a nuclear war with the Soviet Union, obliterating both countries. For the whole of October, the world teetered on a knife-edge, until at last the two states came to an agreement.

Some think the crisis is proof that nuclear war will never really happen. In the end, neither the USA nor the USSR was willing to fire their missiles, knowing that doing so would guarantee destruction for both of them. Any nuclear threat will always be a bluff.

But others say this is the wrong lesson to draw. The fear of destruction does not always lead people to back down. It can just make them escalate still further.

Earlier this year, Putin gave a speech in which he reminisced about hunting rats as a child. He remembered one huge rat that, finding itself cornered with nowhere to run, instead went on the attack, chasing the young Putin away.

Today, many think Putin looks more and more like that rat. If he loses the war, he will almost certainly be oustedExpelled; forced out (from power). by vengeful generals. Some even predict that Russia might break up.² Putin might feel he has no choice but to press the nuclear button, to save his own skin and keep his country together.

Yes: Putin cannot afford to lose the war. If he does, he will be toppled and perhaps killed. His life's work will be lost. And he has always been a gambler. We should assume he is ready to throw the dice.

No: Putin knows that using a nuclear weapon could lead to the destruction of his entire country. He is not so desperate to turn the tide in this war that he would risk the very future of the human race.

Or... If Putin uses a nuclear weapon on a purely military target, and not on a city, he could claim it was a legitimate act of war. We might be heading towards a new era of tactical, limited nuclear warfare.