By Reginald Johnson
A nuclear catastrophe was narrowly avoided in the Ukraine-Russia War last weekend.
According to former intelligence officer and arms control expert Scott Ritter. Ukraine had been pressing Washington for permission to use long-range ballistic missiles to hit targets deep within Russia and it appeared that the US was about to greenlight this request. But President Biden backed off at the last minute after a stern warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin that the use of the missiles would be crossing the Rubicon.
Putin had said that such strikes would be regarded as an attack by NATO against Russia and all bets would be off in terms of how Russia would respond. Ritter says that Ukraine, led by crazed leader Volodomyr Zelensky, was all set to use the missiles. Thank god Biden saw the light. Otherwise, according to Ritter, none of us would be reading these words today.
It is vital that negotiations bring this highly volatile conflict between Ukraine and Russia to an end as soon as possible, for the sake of humanity.
(Ritter's piece, "72 Hours" can be read at https://consortiumnews.com/category/u-n-security-council/)
