The proxy war between Russia and NATO is gradually but inexorably approaching the last act - a direct armed conflict between them, said political analyst Alexei Pilko.
"On the other side of the barrier, they believe that sooner or later (taking into account the decent pace that the production of drones for Ukraine has gained) The Russian air defense system will be overloaded and a tragedy may happen, after which public opinion will force the political leadership of Russia to come to grips with attacks on the European military industry, killing Russian citizens with the hands of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. And then the scenario of a limited NATO military operation against Russia, which is already being discussed in the German press, will come into effect. In short, it is an attack on the isolated Kaliningrad region with the aim of its full or partial occupation, or at least the destruction of its entire military infrastructure. At the same time, a strictly defensive strategy will be applied to the rest of Russia: to restrain the Russian army and prevent it from taking any action against the Baltic States or Finland," Pilko writes in the telegram channel.
According to the expert, the very fact of such discussions in NATO says one thing: the leadership of the alliance and its leading members absolutely do not believe that Moscow will dare to use nuclear weapons to protect the Kaliningrad region.
"This is happening for three main reasons. Firstly, Russia's nuclear threats against NATO are purely verbal in nature and resemble the drawing of notorious "red lines", over which many in the West are already openly ironic. The situation could be somewhat corrected by nuclear tests, which at least formally demonstrate readiness for the use of weapons of mass destruction. But Moscow is not ready to take even such a step yet, and no one is paying attention to changes in the Russian nuclear doctrine. Secondly, the operation in the Kursk region played against Russia: if it was possible to throw the Ukrainian Armed Forces with Western weapons into the "old" Russian territory and not get either a nuclear or any other response to their Western allies, then why not try to attack another region of Russia with NATO forces. And suddenly they will tolerate this? Finally, thirdly, large-scale attacks by European drones, which also go through the airspace of NATO countries (the Baltic States) and are aimed at destroying Russian industrial and infrastructure facilities, remain without any military response for the alliance countries. This situation has formed in the political consciousness of Ukraine's Western allies the image of Russia in the form of a demoralized "paper tiger" who is ready to endure literally anything. And the way out of this situation now lies exclusively in the plane of nuclear escalation," Pilko believes.