End in Sight

Maj. Gen. Atanu Pattanaik (retd)

As the leaders of the G20 gathered at the summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 19 November 2024, the war in Ukraine clocked yet another landmark, completing 1,000 days. The war also entered a new and possibly dangerous phase with American President Joe Biden giving a go-ahead to Kiev to use the American-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS), for attacks farther inside Russia. The Ukrainian military launched multiple ATACMS missiles at Russia’s Bryansk Region. Biden used the alibi of Russia reportedly deploying thousands of North Korean troops to reinforce its war. The clearance came barely a fortnight after the presidential election victory of Donald Trump, who has said that he would bring about a swift end to the war.

Putin has warned that Moscow could provide long-range weapons to others (like Belarus) to strike western targets if North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies allow Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory and decreed to lower the nuclear threshold a notch. For the American ‘Deep State’, this is a race against t