Three overarching goals have informed the Asia Pacific Leadership Network's (APLN) approach to nuclear threats since its inception a decade ago: the imperative to hold firm against proliferation, the matching importance of credible steps toward disarmament, and defusing geopolitical tensions that heighten nuclear risks. All three are at play in Ukraine.

People may take various positions on what happened in Ukraine, but when it comes down to it, the most important – and tragic – fact is that all this destruction could have been avoided.

On 25 February, the United Nations Security Council voted on a draft resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and calling on it to stop the attack and withdraw its troops. Sponsored jointly by the US and Albania, the resolution received the affirmative vote of 11 of the council’s 15 members. But it was defeated by the solitary negative vote of Russia (by chance the council president for February) as a veto-wielding permanent member. The three countries to abstain were China, India and the United Arab Emirates.

War is back in Europe. What a shock. At the beginning of the year we asked ourselves: Are we back in the Cold War? Now it’s a hot war. It’s not the first war in Europe: Northern Ireland, several Balkan wars, Georgia, Moldova. This time, it seems we are back in the old block confrontation. Western politicians and media call it the third historical turning point after the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11.

Russian president Vladimir Putin overnight ordered the defence minister and the chief of the military to put nuclear deterrent forces in a “special regime of combat duty”, possibly referring to readying tactical nuclear forces. This could of course be a bluff, but Putin has demonstrated on numerous occasions he has a cavalier disrespect for human life and for the planet, and that he is willing to take extreme risks to achieve his strategic goals.

As a peace researcher for over 40 years, it appals me that in 2022 we are trying to make sense of an outmoded 20th century invasion aimed at changing borders and seizing sovereignty. This war is the most blatant act of cross border aggression that I have seen since the Second World War and a major contravention of the UN Charter.