2024-11-21
28 分钟From long-range missiles being launched to North Korean troops being drafted in, Dan Sabbagh looks at whether the rapid escalation could signal the beginning of the end of the conflict. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
This is the Guardian today.
Long range missiles, threats of nuclear war and North Korean boots on the ground.
What is really behind escalating violence in Ukraine?
A couple of days ago, the full scale war in Ukraine reached 11000 days.
For months it was a grind.
Russia slowly, painfully winning territory off of Ukraine, which is outgunned, outmanned, but nowhere near giving in.
But over the past week, the fighting on the ground has become much more intense.
This week, Ukraine used an American made long range missile to strike Russian territory.
That's never happened before.
The Ministry of Defense saying Ataca missiles targeted the Bryansk region in the early hours.
Moscow says five of the missiles were.
Shot down, one was damaged.
There are now thousands of North Korean troops on the ground.
Russia's Kursk region where Ukrainian troops have been fighting to hold land they seized.
At the end of the summer.
Now they say they're not just fighting Russian soldiers, but North Koreans as well.
And not for the first time, warnings by Russia that this war could go nuclear.
Published today, a Kremlin decree lowering the nuclear threshold.
Russia now reserving the right to go nuclear even if attacked by conventional weapons.
But what if all that escalation was not a sign that this war is going to rumble on for another thousand days?