“Nuclear powers must avert those confrontations which bring an adversary to a choice of either a humiliating retreat or a nuclear war.”—Statement by President John F. Kennedy made in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962

Soon after Ukraine’s attack on June 1, 2025 on Russian bomber planes capable of delivering nuclear weapons, there were a number of comments celebrating this attack as a great victory or achievement in sections of leading western media and establishment.

Can such a response be called rational or justified? Clearly, not. Instead there was much more reason for voicing very serious concern over how this has raised the risks of nuclear war. Instead of celebrating, these commentators, if they care at all about human and other life, should have been engaged in serious, even agitated discussion on how such huge risks should be reduced substantially with immediate steps being taken on the basis of urgency for this.

A recent article written by George Beebe, a former senior intelligence analyst with the USA government, has brought out the seriousness of these risks. George Beebe is also the author of a book titled ‘The Russia Trap-How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe’ (2019). His article referred to here has been published in The Responsible Statecraft on June 11, 2025.

In this article titled ‘What the gitty reaction to Ukraine’s surprise attacks says about us’, George Beebe has written, referring to the celebration of the June 1 attack,

“Such reaction largely ignored the impact that such attacks might have on nuclear stability between the US and Russia which together have more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons.”

This review notes that following the authorization by Joe Biden of the use of US weapons supplied to Ukraine for striking Russian territory, a new nuclear doctrine had been announced by Russia in 2024. While the earlier doctrine had stated that Russia would use nuclear weapons only when facing a nuclear attack or an attack which posed existential threat to Russia, the new 2024 doctrine changed the situation.

As Beebe writes,

“Under the new doctrine, Russia could use nuclear weapons in response to a conventional attack that simply undermined Russia’s retaliatory nuclear strike capability. And it noted specifically that an attack by a non-nuclear state carried out with the support of a nuclear power would be considered a joint attack.”

Now if we see the June 1 attack in the context of this doctrine, then it is clear that this kind of attack meets the conditions in which a nuclear weapon retaliatory attack is possible, under the terms laid down in the doctrine, although of course almost everyone hopes that this will not happen.

What is more, several observers have stated that the June 1 attack, which took many months to prepare and whose planning is likely to have originated before the government change in the USA, is unlikely to have been taken up by Ukraine entirely on its own without the technical and/or intelligence support of one or more leading western powers or one or more NATO member countries. (Here it must be added that after the attack President Trump has spoken regarding the non-involvement in the June 1 attack or any fore-knowledge of this). 

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Burning Tu-95s at Olenya air base (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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It is clear that the June 1 attack had the potential for creating or advancing the conditions for a nuclear weapon war involving Russia, Ukraine and at least some NATO member/western countries.

Coming back to the comment by Beebe, he has written explaining how the June 1 attack was a very provocative and dangerous action when seen in the context of the new doctrine.

“That doctrine (the changed Russian nuclear doctrine of 2024) seemed designed to deter the very kind of operations that Ukraine carried out (on June 1, 2025). In crossing that redline, Kyiv confronted Russia with a vexing security conundrum. A retaliation perceived as excessively destructive might persuade Trump to reinforce Washington’s military support for Ukraine, trigger a new wave of toughened sanctions, or even draw the US or NATO directly into the war. Two weak a response could signal that Russia is in practice a paper tiger, too timid to enforce its own redlines if the West were to support a sustained campaign of deep strikes into Russia or deploy European forces inside Ukraine.”

Clearly therefore the June 1 attack was a very provocative attack that provokes Russia to respond with a much bigger attack. While all those committed to peace hope for de-escalation, the reality is that conditions of dangerous escalation are being promoted to the point where risks of nuclear war also increase significantly.

While this is not to say that nuclear war is likely just now, any actions that increase this risk from about 5% to about 10 to 20% are extremely wrong, and must be condemned as such, instead of being the object of celebration.

The wider reality is that that in any kind of nuclear war, brinkmanship is inherently very dangerous and must be avoided in all situations. Such tactics can spin out of control in certain situations and become the cause of such catastrophic ruin that no one really wanted.

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A-50 targeted at Ivanovo Severny air base (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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Why are some powerful persons in Ukraine (and their supporters among certain sections of west leadership) indulging in such dangerous tactics even after such enormous distress has already been caused by the war? Do they lack the great concern for saving the life of at least their own people that is generally taken for granted among most national leaders? 

Several observers in the past have noticed the tendency a small but powerful group of persons in Ukraine to try to escalate the war into a much wider war for their very narrowly perceived reasons. (In a different part of the world, Netanyahu and those of his thinking also have been trying for a wider war to promote their narrow interests). This is a very dangerous position to take. The way ahead is to end this war as early as possible, or at very least, stop escalating it in new and very dangerous ways.

At a wider level, there is a need to end all efforts to indulge in nuclear brinkmanship and to stop provoking nuclear weapon powers in the way that President Kennedy had warned against. This should be part of written or unwritten doctrine for world’s leaders and diplomats. On the other hand if a nuclear weapon power very unethically uses the cover of its nuclear weapon power status to try to get away with its promotion of terrorism and terror acts, then this too should be opposed strongly and unitedly by the international community.

Of course the ideal situation will be that of entirely eliminating all nuclear weapons and in fact all weapons of mass destruction but till such time that these weapons remain, much more care must be taken to ensure that these are never used.

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Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Saving Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Man over Machine. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: A photo of a FPV-drone-struck military plane Tu-95 at Russia’s Olenya airbase during the attack. (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)

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