It seems like some form of "escalation" may be finally coming. But what it will look like remains open. It's happening right now because Ukraine is on the cusp of defeat.
Western countries - primarily the US and UK as "off-shore nations" - are attempting to do what they did in WW2: embroil mainland Europe in a war, with Putin playing the part of "Hitler". The goal being to economically 'downgrade' both Russia and the EU, leaving the real "Atlantic alliance" (US/UK) to reap the benefits and stave off their own economic decline.
As noted here already, the only justification that the US could come up with for allowing UK/France-made and US-directed cruise missiles (and long range US-supplied ATACAMs already in Ukraine's arsenal) to be used against military targets well-inside Russia is the bogus claim that Russia 'bought' Iranian ballistic missiles. But even if Russia has acquired Iranian ballistic missiles to use in Ukraine, this is hardly an escalation given that Russia has been using its own far more advanced missiles in Ukraine long before now.
But in the deviant minds of US/UK warmongers, Russia adding low-grade Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia's already advanced arsenal for use in Ukraine, is equivalent to the US/UK adding high-grade cruise missiles to Ukraine's relatively low-grade arsenal for use - BY NATO PERSONNEL - against Russian military sites!
There's clearly only one side "escalating" here.
Russia's forbearance in the face of US/UK provocations over the past few years has been laudable. The US/UK is engaging in psychopathic 'game theory', slowly and increasingly goading Russia in an effort to provoke it into targeting NATO sites outside of Ukraine, like in Poland, or even Germany.
The possibility that NATO forces inside Ukraine would use UK-made and US-directed cruise missiles against military sites in Russia would, as Putin has said, mean that NATO (primarily US/UK) is objectively at war with Russia.
Ukraine does not possess such weapons, and it's not even a case of the US/UK "giving" them to Ukraine. Such weapons must be installed, launched and directed by US/UK personnel. As an analogy, consider if, tomorrow, you heard that Ukraine had launched a nuclear weapon (which Ukraine does not have) at Russia. Who would believe that it was Ukraine doing that? And what would be the conclusion about the real authors' intention? To "defend Ukraine"? Or destroy Russia?
The unavoidable truth here is that if UK-French/US cruise and long range missiles are fired at Russian sites, then it will clearly mean that the US/UK are using their own weapons to target Russia. The only part Ukraine plays is that its land is used as the firing location.
The legitimate response of this *actual* US/UK escalation would be for Russia to directly target NATO military sites outside of Ukraine. But will Russia do that?
The Russian govt. (and most of the Russian people) are well aware that this is precisely what the US/UK want to see happen. Because they can then point to this as 'evidence' that they were right all along, that Putin planned to expand the war outside of Ukraine and into Eastern Europe and beyond, and they (the US/UK) have been justified in training arming and funding the Ukrainian military since 2014.
This is the kind of "grab me gotcha" or nigysob tactics that the US/UK use in dealing with Russia, and anyone else they deem a threat to their hegemony. Whether or not Russia has the smarts to deal with appropriately remains to be seen.
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