From the “Le Quotidien” newsletter: A big take on current affairs, from the team that brings you “The Daily” podcast. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.

He thought it would be easy.

President Vladimir Putin predicted that Russian tanks would arrive and overwhelm Ukraine. He claimed that his troops might even be welcome in some corners of the country.

What he had not anticipated was the rise of nationalism among the Ukrainian people; the galvanizing global leadership demonstrated by President Volodymyr Zelensky; the perception of the invasion as an attack on democratic liberalism more broadly; the reunification of polarized and fractured Western alliances; or the revitalization of NATO. Overnight, it seemed, the whole world turned against him, leading to comprehensive public and private sanctions that crippled his country and challenged his power.

In short, he is backed into a corner. And as everyone says, a corner is a dangerous place to put Putin. With the options for military success in Ukraine dwindling, how will he save face? Will he go wild? And in this boost, will he turn to the Russian nuclear arsenal?

Below, we answer three of your questions on the subject:

Are we on the brink of nuclear war?

When asked this question, President Biden had a curt answer: “No.”

After the invasion of Ukraine, Putin ordered Russian nuclear forces to be on high alert, the first time the Kremlin had done so since the establishment of the Russian Federation in 1991. This followed thinly veiled threats of nuclear attack if a foreign power tried to prevent it from waging war.

America seems to be calling on Russia to bluff (or at least the Biden administration wants to appear stoic in the face of a real threat). Yet Russia and the United States control 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, so any discussion of a nuclear attack raises questions that no one has seriously asked. since the end of the cold war.

Since then, the doctrine of “mutually assured destruction” – according to which no state will start a nuclear war because certain retaliation would put its own fate in question – has prevented the launching of nuclear weapons. Although Putin’s threat should be taken seriously, experts say, this doctrine should still hold. After all, Putin’s goal is to win back former Soviet glory, which would be difficult to do if Moscow were threatened by retaliatory nuclear missiles.

What other nuclear risks exist?

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other nuclear concerns to think about. Of particular concern is the safety of nuclear waste caught in the crossfire in Ukraine.

Specifically, atomic experts are carefully monitoring the state of the Chernobyl nuclear facility which recently came under Russian control. Chernobyl was the scene of the worst nuclear disaster in history when one of its four reactors exploded and burned 36 years ago, and Ukraine’s long-defunct power plant relies entirely on outside electricity sources. Experts were alarmed this week when the plant lost outside power, raising serious concerns about long-term nuclear waste storage.

However, Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency said on Friday that more diesel fuel had been delivered to power emergency generators that monitor and protect the large amount of radioactive waste there. The question is: as the war continues with no definitive end in sight, can Russia ensure the safety of the Chernobyl waste and protect Europe from another nuclear disaster?

Is the risk of nuclear war increased in the long term?

Vox’s Bryan Walsh claimed that the war in Ukraine could portend the end of the “long peace” – the holiday from the extremely violent history of mankind that the world has enjoyed for the past few decades.

While it’s too early to tell whether his predictions will come true, some experts have warned that the specter of great-power nuclear war could force smaller states to think about the need to acquire nuclear weapons to secure themselves. protect. For example, our colleagues at The Debatable pointed out a majority of South Koreans have come to favor the development of a national nuclear weapons program to protect against Chinese or North Korean attacks. Zelensky of Ukraine said his country made a mistake by giving up the nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union.

The war in Ukraine has also halted efforts to revive a nuclear deal with Iran, and it risks derailing the deal entirely. The blackout will bring Iran closer to the capability to build a nuclear bomb.

“I feel a period is ending,” Mary Elise Sarotte, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in The Times. “I now deeply fear that Mr. Putin’s recklessness will only make the years between the Cold War and the Covid-19 pandemic seem like a dream period to future historians, compared to what followed. I fear we may find ourselves missing the old Cold War.

From the Daily team: Composing the sounds of loss – and nostalgia – in Ukraine

In Monday’s episode, we listened to Daily host Sabrina Tavernise as she traveled from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, to Lviv – a trip that took two days and two nights. One of our composers, Marion Lozano, created the music for the episode, and we wanted to share the story behind two of the patterns you may remember hearing.

‘Slow burning‘

This song is sometimes used as a replacement for the Daily’s main theme song. But “it’s more worrying,” Marion said. “The main instrumentation is a piano and it’s layered with ambient pads.”

Listen.

We asked Lynsea Garrison, one of our producers, what made her choose “Slow Burn” when she scored the episode. “I just loved that it wasn’t too sad; there was a hint of something more melancholic, almost a bittersweet nostalgia,” Lynsea said. “I wanted to use it mostly under the stage when Sabrina asks people about the lives they left behind in passing cars. They were leaving their lives behind almost as quickly as they told Sabrina, and I wanted something more that evoked a deeper longing.

‘Arpology‘

This song is played throughout the episode. Here is how Marion described it to us:

It was originally written to settle the final details of a tragic story. The song features an arpeggiator synth that plays throughout the entire song, and sometimes it’s layered with a piano. There are also wooden swells and piano chords that guide the song and really pique the listener’s curiosity of ‘is there light at the end of this tunnel?’

Listen.

Daily this week

Monday: We traveled with Ukrainian refugees fleeing the country.

Tuesday: Why Zelensky poses a unique threat to Putin.

Wednesday: Who will Russia’s oil bans hurt the most?

Thusday: Inside the besieged cities of Ukraine.

Friday: What is Putin’s endgame? Our Opinion colleague, Ezra Klein, posed the question to Fiona Hill, a national security expert.

That’s it for the Daily newsletter. See you next week.

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