Commentary
Ukraine is poking the delicate balance of nuclear deterrence
Ukraine’s defense, which began with Javelins fired at invading tank columns, is now focused on ever-more-sophisticated drones, whose disruptive impact cannot be underestimated.
“You don’t have the cards,” Donald Trump shouted at Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office. Now the Ukrainians can say that, in the end, Zelensky did hold a few cards of his own – and that Kyiv has just shown it can play them without the servile bow demanded by Vice-President J. D. Vance.
It is best to avoid sensationalist hype: labelling the unexpected blow dealt to Moscow’s air force “the Russian Pearl Harbor” only amplifies revanchist, warmongering rhetoric on both sides.
History teaches that wars start in one place and one way, then evolve to spread elsewhere and in other forms. Pearl Harbor was an unprovoked strike Japan launched against the U.S. base in Hawaii to knock Washington out of the Pacific fight before it began.
Inspired by Britain’s devastating 1940 success in sinking Mussolini’s fleet at Taranto, the Japanese attack opened a war arc that ended with America’s atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Russia began invading Ukraine in 2014 and launched a full-scale offensive in 2022. Under ius in bello, the laws of war, Kyiv’s strike on bombers and missiles targeting its cities cannot be called a provocation. However, there is a problem: fueled by threadbare mantras such as si vis pacem, para bellum and “peace through strength,” escalation dynamics have entered a critical phase.
Arms-control treaties require the superpowers to keep their strategic bombers visible to satellites so that early-warning mechanisms would work. By exploiting that transparency to locate its targets, Kyiv’s attack amounts to another step in dismantling the security architecture painstakingly built to secure peace.
Despite recent declarations about the need to rebuild that architecture, the breakdown of U.S.-Russian dialogue on strategic stability in 2022 shows how deep the roots of this process go. The erosion of the arms-control regime began right after September 11, 2001, when U.S. Republicans – dismissing Russia as a has-been power – ignored the Kremlin’s protests over Washington’s missile projects.
Nowadays, deterrence calculations are made even more complicated by modernized arsenals, technological leaps, as well as the multiplication of nuclear powers and the tensions among them: not only Russia’s nuclear rhetoric toward the West, but also the India-Pakistan escalation and the “devastating consequences for the region and the world” that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth warned would follow a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
The Ukrainian strike undermines Russia’s confidence in its own security. Vladimir Putin, unlike chief negotiator Vladimir Medinski, downplayed the damage, claiming Russia lost only four percent of its strategic bombers, against Kyiv’s claim of 34 percent. Where the truth lies remains uncertain, as well as Russia’s actions in response, but a direct hit on Russia’s deterrent forces the Kremlin to reprioritize, and from now on every cargo consignment will be eyed nervously for fear of a new attack. Zelensky’s aim is to make Russia feel the weight of its losses; on Tuesday, the Ukrainians also hit Crimea’s strategic Kerch bridge for the third time.
Even as Ukraine is forced to give up ground on the Sumy front, it has managed to land this punch on the eve of the Istanbul talks, almost sure to fail, with Washington oscillating between threats of sanctions and threats to abandon the process entirely. One day U.S. officials are berating Zelensky, the next they’re calling Putin mad. Buoyed by its “special operation,” Kyiv’s delegation arrived with spirits high and in full uniform: after a raid they insist “will go down in history,” they know it will be hard for the Americans to back away and are waiting for the result of Chancellor Merz’s visit to Washington.
Ukraine’s defense, which began with Javelins fired at invading tank columns, is now focused on ever-more-sophisticated drones, whose disruptive impact cannot be underestimated. Strategic confrontation and tactical engagement lines are shifting in every war, exposing flaws in large, expensive forces built on concentrated firepower – air forces and artillery – that struggle to stop drone attacks; as a result, the latter are reinforcing the importance of light infantry and electronic warfare.
Across a European border newly lined with barriers and trenches, an increasingly militarized Poland has elected – thanks to the nationalist far right vote, anti-EU and in many respects anti-Ukrainian and pro-Russian – a president who is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces. He will sit in NATO councils and holds de facto veto power over the actions of Donald Tusk’s government, whom he aims to topple.
Kyiv’s raid crowns a transformation in war and politics that makes strategic calculation far harder and less predictable. For years, sensationalist media have pestered analysts to say whether each twist marks a negotiating breakthrough, a Caporetto or a Pearl Harbor. The reality is that, after Trump and his allies deluded themselves they could make Putin abandon his demands for Ukraine’s unconditional surrender, the war grinds on – and it is more urgent than ever to resist delivering the media narratives that would sustain it.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/evoluzione-atomica-la-pericolosa-carta-ucraina-nel-conflitto on 2025-06-04