This has been more and more evident as time goes on. NATO now supplying current generation of battle tanks to Ukraine is the latest step in the Russia-NATO war. It's not WWIII but there's not many steps left for NATO to give Ukraine missiles capable of hitting Moscow and Putin's bunker.
'Russia is now at war with NATO and the West': Putin has taken conflict in Ukraine 'to a different stage', senior EU official admits following Germany's decision to supply tanks
Stefano Sannino, secretary general of the European Union's European External Action Service, said Vladimir Putin will increase indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets and retaliate against the West.
Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo as part of an Asia-Pacific tour, he said Putin had 'moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West'.
Opinion Putin is embracing Stalin’s way of war
“The military-patriotic hysteria brings to mind the USSR of the 1930’s, the era of parades of athletes, tank mock-ups and dirigibles, and shaved napes,” wrote opposition essayist Sergei Medvedev. “Today, the people again joyfully dress in Red Army uniforms, take pictures of themselves on tanks and await war.” In the endless victory liturgy, Medvedev continued, Putin has forged a nation of war that has “battened the hatches and views the world through the lookout slit of a tank.”
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Putin appropriated the title that Stalin awarded himself at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War: “Supreme Commander-in-Chief.”
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Bakhmut has shown that it’s not just for the rank that Putin looked to Stalin. Stalin’s infamous 1942 Order No. 227, known as “Not a step back,” created penal battalions, or shtrafbats. Staffed with officers and soldiers “guilty of the breach of discipline,” the shtrafbats were sent on kamikaze “human waves” attacks to “redeem by blood their crimes against the motherland.” Those lucky enough to be wounded but not killed were returned to regular units.
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“We drowned the enemy in our blood; we buried him under our corpses,” a war veteran and writer, Viktor Astafiev, recalled in 1988 of his experience in the Great Patriotic War.
The current defense minister, Shoigu, has proposed raising the number of combat personnel in the armed forces from 1.15 million to 1.5 million. Putin is readying for such a war. Ukraine and its Western supporters ought to be steeled for it as well.
'Russia is now at war with NATO and the West': Putin has taken conflict in Ukraine 'to a different stage', senior EU official admits following Germany's decision to supply tanks
Stefano Sannino, secretary general of the European Union's European External Action Service, said Vladimir Putin will increase indiscriminate attacks on civilians and non-military targets and retaliate against the West.
Speaking at a news conference in Tokyo as part of an Asia-Pacific tour, he said Putin had 'moved from a concept of special operation to a concept now of a war against NATO and the West'.
Opinion Putin is embracing Stalin’s way of war
“The military-patriotic hysteria brings to mind the USSR of the 1930’s, the era of parades of athletes, tank mock-ups and dirigibles, and shaved napes,” wrote opposition essayist Sergei Medvedev. “Today, the people again joyfully dress in Red Army uniforms, take pictures of themselves on tanks and await war.” In the endless victory liturgy, Medvedev continued, Putin has forged a nation of war that has “battened the hatches and views the world through the lookout slit of a tank.”
...
Putin appropriated the title that Stalin awarded himself at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War: “Supreme Commander-in-Chief.”
...
Bakhmut has shown that it’s not just for the rank that Putin looked to Stalin. Stalin’s infamous 1942 Order No. 227, known as “Not a step back,” created penal battalions, or shtrafbats. Staffed with officers and soldiers “guilty of the breach of discipline,” the shtrafbats were sent on kamikaze “human waves” attacks to “redeem by blood their crimes against the motherland.” Those lucky enough to be wounded but not killed were returned to regular units.
...
“We drowned the enemy in our blood; we buried him under our corpses,” a war veteran and writer, Viktor Astafiev, recalled in 1988 of his experience in the Great Patriotic War.
The current defense minister, Shoigu, has proposed raising the number of combat personnel in the armed forces from 1.15 million to 1.5 million. Putin is readying for such a war. Ukraine and its Western supporters ought to be steeled for it as well.