Abdolreza Farajirad says NATO and Ukraine now think that they can deal a major blow to Russia after it failed to quickly conclude the war in eastern Ukraine.
Farajirad says NATO is delivering advanced arms to Ukraine to bog Russian military down in the east of the country, and the plan has been somewhat successful.
According to the analyst, Ukraine now has the upper hand and has even jeopardized the Crimean Peninsula – once considered a symbol of Russia’s victory in eastern Ukraine – by the explosion that hit the multi-billion dollar Kerch Bridge that cut off Russia’s link with southern Ukraine.
Farajirad says Russia’s recent missile strikes against Ukraine are an attempt to blunt Ukraine’s offensive and bring its attacks under control.
If Russia manages to force Ukraine to accept a ceasefire by the strikes, the analyst says, Moscow will not opt for the use of nuclear weapons.
Nuking Ukraine, he says, will have severe consequences for Moscow, but it could use the weapons to prevent Ukrainian forces from taking back eastern territories now controlled by Russia.
Farajirad says the west would exploit any Russian use of non-conventional weapons to launch a propaganda to expel the country from the UN Security Council, legally or illegally, just as the US used the 9/11 attacks to convince even Pakistan to cooperate in the war on the Taliban.
Farajirad says negotiations between Russia and the west to end the war is still possible if Europe’s winter and the “fatal” inflation due to energy shortage force Europeans into talks.
