The “limitless” friendship that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin strove to stage last March in Moscow actually contained a clear red line. The Chinese president reportedly warned his Russian counterpart against resorting to nuclear weapons. This was explained yesterday by the London Financial Times, based on undisclosed Chinese “advisers” and “former officials”.
The Kremlin, however, has denied the leak. His spokeswoman has said that several statements came out of that important summit – Jinping’s first trip abroad since the pandemic – and that what is not included in them “is fiction”. However, many experts warn that if the Russian military were to be hemmed in by an ever-increasing and deadlier flow of NATO weapons, the temptation to use tactical nuclear weapons might be irresistible.
These could be used to stop the hypothetical advance of enemy troops. The most eminent political scientist of the American Royalist School, John Mearsheimer, has no doubt that Moscow would resort to these weapons should its dominance of Crimea come under threat. Russian military doctrine provides for the use of a nuclear weapon in the event that the very survival of the Russian state is in question.
The fact is that Putin himself has declared in various forums that he does not intend to use nuclear weapons for the simple reason that “it is not necessary. We are incinerating the Leopard tanks and when the F-16s arrive we will destroy them too.” The aforementioned Mearsheimer considers that the relative failure of the Ukrainian offensive is actually a reason for optimism that drives away the possibility of a Third World War, with the consequent risk of mutually assured destruction.
In any case, for months, in many countries bordering Ukraine, the demand for certain iodine pills, supposedly capable of inhibiting the effects of nuclear radiation on the thyroid gland, has skyrocketed. In Eastern Europe it is still fresh how the Chernobyl accident triggered thyroid cancer cases.
The main concern is now in another Ukrainian nuclear power plant, which is also the largest in Europe. Control of the Zaporizhia reactors was wrested from Ukrainian soldiers by the Russians last March and both armies have been playing with fire ever since, using heavy artillery in their immediate vicinity. In recent weeks, Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky has accused Russia of “mining” the roof of the facility with the alleged aim of “causing an accident”, allegedly to “stop the Ukrainian advance”.
These accusations have not been corroborated by observers on the ground from the International Atomic Energy Agency. They have also been rejected by Moscow, which warns against “a false flag attack.” Kyiv has failed to convincingly explain what interest Russia might have in radioactively contaminating its own troops, in the Russophone and partly Russophile areas it already controls or aspires to control if the war drags on. Without leaving this crazy scenario, it must be remembered that, in case it wants to resort to nuclear blackmail, Russia has at its disposal precision hypersonic missiles capable of destroying nuclear power plants in areas controlled by Kiev.
Be that as it may, the Ukrainian Ministry of Health imported emergency advice this week for those living within a radius of Zaporizhia. However, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov – 37 years old – after fueling suspicions of Russian sabotage for weeks, would now affirm – in an interview published in The Times – that the risk regarding Zaporizhia “begins to decrease”. British sources quoted by the Financial Times are considering the possibility of a “moderate” nuclear incident, far from the catastrophic proportions of Chernobyl, a plant from another era, with a very different design and security measures.
The exchange of accusations between the two belligerent sides is not new, since it already occurred in the recent case of the bombing or bombing of the Nova Kakhova dam and, even earlier, in the blowing up of the German-Russian Nordstream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. .
China, which last year raised its trade with Russia to a record level, does not want, in any case, to worsen its relations with Europe. Looking the other way in an invasion scenario is not the same as doing so in a nuclear holocaust scenario. Among the five formal nuclear powers, only China explicitly rejects in its doctrine being the first to push the button.
In any case, while the limits of the possible are being exceeded in the destructive escalation in Ukraine, a red line has already been crossed, with the supply, by the British, of depleted uranium ammunition. This has a greater capacity to perforate tanks but, as was seen after the invasion of Iraq, it also leaves consequences for decades, with the contamination of the air, soil and water and the multiplication of fetuses with malformations.
The British leaks come at the same time that US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen begins a four-day visit to Beijing. Another attempt to recalibrate relations between the two leading economic powers, which have seriously deteriorated due to the tensions over the island of Taiwan, following the recent visit by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
