Christian thinker Michael Snyder is one of the few conservatives writing about the razor-edged situation the world is now in. As he documents, neither Russia nor the Ukraine/NATO intend to back down or in anyway deescalate. Putin cannot back down now with the Russian death toll, as it will finish his regime. And the neo-cons and Democrat hawks are intent upon war. The Russians just deployed tactical nukes to Belarus, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has said that these weapons are “three times more powerful than US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.” Thus, when tactical nukes are employed, it will be worse than anything humanity experienced in Japan in 1945. And, the West will retaliate, and will not accept the Russian strategy of “escalate to de-escalate.” Then, it is on, and where it ends is anyone’s guess.

We have a problem, alright.

https://michaeltsnyder.substack.com/p/as-russia-prepares-to-use-tactical

“What is it going to take to wake people up?  Russia is deploying tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, and there is lots of talk in the Russian media about using such weapons to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine.  The theory is that once the Russians show that they are willing to use tactical nukes, the U.S. and the other western powers will back off.  But that won’t be what happens.  Instead of backing off, the Biden administration will respond by using U.S. tactical nuclear weapons against Russian targets in Ukraine.  And once both sides have used tactical nukes, it is just a matter of time before the big nukes get used.

This war could have been avoided at the negotiating table long before it ever started, but that didn’t happen.

And we could still have a negotiated solution, but at this point both sides are not interested in peace talks at all.

So we will continue to steamroll down a road that leads to nuclear conflict.  Both sides just continue to escalate matters over and over again, and even Vladimir Putin is admitting that this could easily cause “a Third World War”…

Putin, speaking at a meeting with Russian war correspondents in Moscow yesterday, said: ‘The United States pretends not to be afraid of an escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, but sane people there clearly do not want to take this to a Third World War.

‘In the event of a Third World War, there will be no winners, including America.’

But even though Putin realizes where things could be heading, he insists that peace talks are not an option.

In fact, he just said that this war will only end by “freeing the entire territory of the former Ukraine from the United States and Ukrainian Nazis”…

“We were forced to try to end the war that the West started in 2014 by force of arms. And Russia will end this war by force of arms, freeing the entire territory of the former Ukraine from the United States and Ukrainian Nazis. There are no other options,” Putin said.

“The Ukrainian army of the US and NATO will be defeated, no matter what new types of weapons it receives from the West. The more weapons there are, the fewer Ukrainians and what used to be Ukraine will remain.”

And importantly, he emphasized that “Direct intervention by NATO’s European armies will not change the outcome. But in this case, the fire of war will engulf the whole of Europe. It looks like the US is ready for that too.”

Did you catch that last part?

Even if NATO forces directly intervene in Ukraine, Putin says that “will not change the outcome”.

He is not going to back down, and he is not bluffing.

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Of course Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also completely ruling out peace talks…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected the prospect of negotiations with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

In an interview with Britain’s Sky News, which was broadcast on Thursday, Zelensky said that Putin “doesn’t want negotiations because he doesn’t want peace.”

The Ukrainian leader said he was “convinced” that Ukraine was “just the first step” for Putin, who has his eye on “other countries.”

U.S. leaders have been making similar statements.

They keep telling us that “we are in it to win it”, whatever that means.

Our politicians have become absolutely obsessed with “winning” in Ukraine, and they are not going to back down either.

But many inside Russia believe that western leaders are weak and that they can be forced to back down.

As I noted at the beginning of this article, the idea that using tactical nukes will force the U.S. and other western powers to back off is starting to gain a lot of traction in the Russian media.  For example, the following excerpt comes from an article in the Russian media entitled “By using its nuclear weapons, Russia could save humanity from a global catastrophe” that was authored by Professor Sergey Karaganov, the honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy…

We cannot repeat the ‘Ukrainian scenario’. For a quarter of a century we were not listened to when we warned that NATO enlargement would lead to war; we tried to delay, to “negotiate”. As a result, we ended up in a serious armed conflict. Now the price of indecision is an order of magnitude higher than it would have been earlier.

But what if the present Western leaders refuse to back down? Perhaps they have lost all sense of self-preservation? Then we will have to hit a group of targets in a number of countries to bring those who have lost their senses back to their senses.

It’s a morally frightening choice – we would be using God’s weapon and condemning ourselves to great spiritual loss. But if this is not done, not only may Russia perish, but most likely the whole of human civilization will end.

The paragraphs above were not written by some random nutjob.

Professor Sergey Karaganov is considered to be one of Russia’s top foreign policy experts.

But he is dead wrong.

If Russia uses tactical nukes in Ukraine, western leaders will not lose their resolve.

Instead, they will use tactical nukes in return.

We must not go down this road.

Unfortunately, people like you and I don’t get to make these decisions.

The Russians just deployed tactical nukes to Belarus, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is warning some of these weapons are “three times more powerful than US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945”…

His comments come as Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko revealed that his country had started to receive tactical nuclear weapons from its ally Russia.

Lukashenko told Russian state TV that his country was receiving weapons – some of which he said were three times more powerful than US atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus is Moscow’s first move of such warheads – shorter-range less powerful nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield – outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

When people hear the term “tactical nukes”, they tend to think of them as relatively small weapons.

But that is not the case at all.

In fact, if one of those tactical nukes is launched it will be the largest nuclear weapon used in a war in all of recorded human history.

I just wish that both sides would stop escalating the conflict, because once nukes are used there will be no turning back.

Sadly, our leaders just can’t help themselves.

Just a few days ago, we learned that the Biden administration is actually planning to send depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine…

The Biden administration is set to transfer depleted uranium shells to Ukraine for the first time since the Russian invasion began The Wall Street Journal reports Tuesday.

Internal administration debate over the controversial munitions has been ongoing for several months, but an admin official quoted in WSJ says at this point there are “no major obstacles” to sending it, which will be used to equip M1 Abrams tanks provided by Washington.

This is a crime against humanity all by itself.

If you doubt this, go to Google Images and type in “depleted uranium Iraq” and look at the pictures that come up.

On top of everything else, a former Secretary-General of NATO is warning that some European nations such as Poland are actually considering sending troops into Ukraine if the alliance as a whole doesn’t take stronger action soon…

The former civilian head of the NATO alliance is warning that some Eastern European states are prepared to send their soldiers to Ukraine if the bloc does not make significant pledges to Kiev during an upcoming summit.

Anders Rasmussen, former NATO Secretary-General and current adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is touring Europe and Washington to gauge the level of support Kiev should expect at the Vilnius Summit in July. “I think the Poles would seriously consider going in and assemble a coalition of the willing if Ukraine doesn’t get anything in Vilnius,” he said. “We shouldn’t underestimate the Polish feelings, the Poles feel that for too long western Europe did not listen to their warnings against the true Russian mentality.”

How does this end?

It has become clear that neither side is going to back down.

And if push comes to shove, the Russians will definitely use nukes.

I have been warning about this type of a scenario for a long time, but I feel like my warnings fall mostly on deaf ears.

This is not a game.

If the small nukes get used, the big nukes will get used.

And if the big nukes get used, millions of Americans are going to die.”