World feels more tense as the hole deepens

Achilling message from Russia’s shelling at a Ukrainian nuclear power plant is that this war may have few boundaries. It has already resulted in mindspinning geopolitical changes, and stepped up aggression on Ukrainian cities in a week and a half. Escalation is possible, with predictable and unpredictable consequences for that.

No one knows what the political fallout could be from the economic pressure and isolation being applied to Russia — both its oligarchs and its citizens. Or where President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling will lead.

The attack on the Zaporizhzhia plant on Friday was a triggering event for any who remember the 1980s and the Chernobyl disaster. In the end, the International Atomic Energy Agency said a Russian weapon hit a training centre, not a reactor. This reckless action raised the spectre of a potential release of radiation at some stage of the conflict.

At present, Nato countries are supplying Ukraine with weapons and aircraft, while increasing troop numbers and conducting air patrols along the alliance’s edge.

The nuclear plant incident gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky an opportunity to argue Nato should bring in a no-fly-zone over his country.

He said a nuclear explosion would be: “The end for everyone. The end for Europe.”

But the White House has no appetite for a no-fly-zone against a nuclear power, while US President Joe Biden has ruled out US combat troops in Ukraine.

From Zelensky’s perspective, a Western-backed urban insurgency against Moscow would take time to be effective and already photographs of Ukrainian cities recall haunting scenes of previous Russian war campaigns in Aleppo, Syria, and Grozny, Chechnya.

It’s a tricky balancing act for Nato, attempting to keep the conflict contained to within Ukraine’s borders, while trying to avoid direct involvement and confrontation with Russia as its countries send planes, anti-tank missiles, anti-aircraft missiles and drones to Ukraine.

Preventing the fighting from spreading West could give Putin an off-ramp out with a diplomatic deal. Initial attempts at talks, evacuations and ceasefires haven’t worked.

As the conflict becomes a deeper hole for Russia, the dangers of greater destruction, a wider disaster, mistakes and miscalculations grow.

The longer the war goes on and the greater the pressure builds on a cornered Putin, the more the narrative grows that his own future is on the line, that the only way Russia rehabilitates itself in the world is by having a different leader.

That adds greatly to the uncertainty.