The risk of nuclear weapons being used has ebbed and flowed over the past year. I wasn't 100% certain at the beginning of the war that Russia wouldn't be willing to use nuclear weapons over the newly annexed territories, but now I'm less optimistic than many commentators. If Ukraine looks like it's in a position where it could take back Crimea, I think the chance of nuclear use by Russia goes up significantly. The US and NATO have refrained from directly involving themselves in war here.
To mark a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Galen Druke brings back two experts who first joined the podcast when the war began. Samuel Charap is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation and author of the book “Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia.” James Acton is a physicist and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Together they describe why the war has not turned out as originally expected, what the risks of escalation are today and how the conflict might come to an end.