The third winter of the Russia-Ukraine war is coming…and it could be nuclear

In the early morning hours of December 17, Russian General Igor Kirillov, 54, died after an explosive device inside a scooter in front of his apartment building was detonated just as he was leaving the building with his assistant. Both were killed immediately.

The Russian general was the head of the Russian Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Protection Troops (RKbBZ).

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) claimed responsibility for the assassination, considering him a legitimate target for allegedly being responsible for the use of chemical weapons against Ukrainian soldiers, something the Kremlin has always denied.

The general had been accused by Ukraine and NATO of being the mastermind behind the specific use of chloropicrin on the battlefront, a chemical compound used as a pesticide and fumigant in agriculture and as a chemical warfare agent due to its respiratory irritant properties.

This compound (which was heavily used during World War I) can produce acute toxic effects such as difficulty breathing, acute pain in the eyes, throat and skin, vomiting, nausea, diarrhea and even lung damage.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) lists it as a weapon used to cause intentional harm through its toxic properties and even death.

Kirillov was also accused by the UK for being a key player in Russian disinformation propaganda against Ukraine and the West. On one occasion, he accused the US of obstructing investigations into the origin of COVID-19 and on another, that the US government intended to use drones designed to spread “mosquitoes infected with lethal pathogens.”

Kirillov’s murder is the second assassination in Moscow to be attributed to Ukraine in less than a week. The first was that of Mikhail Chatski, an engineer specializing in the design and development of missiles and drones used against the Ukrainian military, who was shot dead on December 11.

The assassination of the Russian general is an open-handed slap in the face of the Russian government in its own house. It occurred in the Ryansky Prospekt district, 7 km from Red Square, the seat of the Kremlin. The general was the highest-ranking general away from the front line to be assassinated by the SBU, and the commander of the Russian special forces in charge of detecting any nuclear explosion, recognizing radiation and chemicals, providing individual and collective protective equipment for soldiers and civilians and decontaminating people, equipment, vehicles, infrastructure and affected territory in case of an attack with non-conventional weapons (nuclear, chemical, biological) by Ukraine and/or NATO.

This happens five weeks before the inauguration of Donald Trump and one week before the Christmas celebrations generating in Moscow, an atmosphere of fear and insecurity among civilians and the high command of the Kremlin.

The murder also represents a humiliation to the Russian government and demonstrates how vulnerable it is to this type of attack, described by the Kremlin as terrorist.

Russia, through the former Russian president and current vice-president of the country’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, promised immediate revenge against the Ukrainian authorities.

An unprecedented Russian response against Ukraine and the impossibility for Putin and Zelenskyy to sit down one day in the same room to negotiate peace is the most likely scenario in the short term.

On the other hand, the Russian response to this attack could be of a magnitude capable of generating an uncontrollable escalation leading to a Third World War just as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand did, heir to the throne of the Astro-Hungarian Empire and his wife, generating in 1914 the beginning of the First World War.

General Igor Kirillov was not the “heir to the throne” in the Kremlin, nor did he have aristocratic blood, but he was the most experienced and knowledgeable military man in the field of defense in the event of a nuclear war against NATO, a vital component in the defenses of the Russian state in charge of its very existence.

The “best case scenario” is that of Russia seeking justice by means of Talion law (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth). However, the Russian government’s responses are always more intense than the motive that caused them.

The response will probably attempt to quickly and effectively eliminate one or more Ukrainian political targets within not many days.

The assassination of General Kirillov may have been planned for several weeks or months, time that Russia will not have before the arrival of Donald Trump, who will seek a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine from the first day of his presidency on January 20, 2025.

In front of the Russian embassy in Tallin, Estonia, last year, a banner was hung in commemoration of the second winter of war in Ukraine demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from all Ukrainian territories, the return of children deported to Ukraine, an end to nuclear weapons threats to world peace, an end to the destruction of Ukraine’s civil and energy infrastructure, and the non-recognition of Vladimir Putin as President after the 2024 elections.

The third winter of the war in Ukraine will officially begin on December 21, 2024 and will end on March 20, 2025 and to date, no de-escalation of the war has been achieved as Ukrainians aspire to those demanded on the banner in front of the Russian embassy in Tallinn. Russia has been advancing rapidly on the Ukrainian eastern front, gaining a foothold in the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporiyia and Kherson oblasts, and has destroyed much of the country’s power grid, leaving thousands of Ukrainian households at the mercy of cold.

The First World War began on July 28, 1914, just one month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by members of the Black Hand, a military organization of nationalist ideology of the Serbian army. Thus, many unfortunate events may occur in the following weeks after de General assassination as they have already been happening since Donald Trump’s victory.

The means Russia will use for its promised revenge is a secondary issue, but it would not be strange if it uses one or several Oreshnik missiles, impossible to intercept by any defense system.

On the other hand, the Ukrainian security service (SBU) could deliver another stab in the heart of Russia by assassinating another high-profile Kremlin leader.

At this moment, the peace and security of the region and the whole world are further away than ever and it seems that it is no longer a race against the clock to get to January 20, 2025 without any major difficulties, but rather a question of time for the third winter of the war between Russia and Ukraine to become a nuclear one, affecting not only these two countries, but the rest of the world.