Are we on the cusp of WWIII? US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy were in Kyiv yesterday to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who is increasingly desperate to get permission to use Nato-supplied long-range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia.

There was a string of reports leading up to the meeting saying that in principle the deal is done. The Brits in particular have said they are OK with Kyiv using its Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia, but Washington is altogether more nervous.

The expectation was that Blinken would sign off on the permission in Kyiv, but it was assumed that he would also arrive with a long list of restrictions such as putting Russia’s oil refineries and power plants off limits; military airfields on the other hand should be legitimate targets and the main focus. As it was, no deal was done, highlighting how fraught the situation is.

As we have been reporting, Ukraine’s main problem is it is defenceless against Russia’s heavy FAB glide bombs and needs to push the fighter jets that launched them well away from Ukraine’s borders.

This need is doubly pressing since the Kursk incursion, as the elite Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) units now camping in the grass in Russia’s south are sitting ducks since they stopped moving. The Russian side reported yesterday that Ukraine has already lost 7,000 men in Kursk, which would be about half the estimated size of the expeditionary force sent if true – but who knows what the real numbers are. In any case, clearly the AFU in Russia is under a lot of pressure and the missile permission is desperately needed to relieve that pressure.

Washington has been afraid of escalation since before the start of this war. When the original consignment of tank-busting Javelin missiles were delivered pre-war, but Ukraine was under strict orders not to use them at all in the Donbas fight against the separatists, except if Russia invaded, which of course eventually happened.

But now it appears we have come very close to the edge of a world war. Russian President Vladimir Putin was on the wire yesterday saying that if the permission to use Nato missiles is given that would bring the West “directly” into the war – and he is not wrong.

Of course, the West is already heavily involved, but the argument so far has been that the West is not attacking Russia, it is only helping its friend to defend itself – and Russia has accepted this line.

Ukraine would have lost a long time ago if the West had not supplied it, and at the same time it’s an open secret that the US was giving Ukraine real time intel to aim the US-made HIMAR rockets at Russian command posts and kill a bunch of Russian generals in the first year of the war, etc. There are even credible reports that US special forces like JSOC are on the ground in Ukraine, providing logistical and intelligence back-up to AFU commanders, if not actually participating in the fighting themselves. The Kremlin warned in February that WWIII would be “inevitable” if Nato sends troops to Ukraine.

So far, the Kremlin has ignored all this simply because it has the upper hand and the last thing it wants is to actually go to war with Nato – a fight it openly admits it cannot win.

Putin’s argument is that it’s one thing to send ammo to the AFU for use inside Ukraine, but it’s another thing entirely to use Nato missiles to strike Russian military targets in Mother Russia herself. The first is passive support, but second is an active attack on Russia and an act of war.

Blinken gets this, hence the caution. The Americans would see it the same way if, say, Russia put a rocket into Cuba or Mexico, and hit a military base outside of, say, Miami. It’s the 1962 scenario all over again.

So, what will happen if Kyiv is given permission, which seems very likely? There are two ways of cutting this up: the usefulness of the threat of WWIII; and the chances WWIII will actually start.

First, as many have pointed out, the war in Ukraine keeps crossing Putin’s red lines and nothing happens. The Kursk incursion is the best example of that. So, it's tempting to call his bluff again with the missile permission, and you can do that if you believe the Kremlin when it says it will never go to war with Nato because it understands it will lose.

An even more powerful argument against allowing Putin to start WWIII is the Chinese won’t allow it. Russia’s defeat would isolate China and put it in a much weaker position vis-à-vis its own clash with the US. And China has the ability to collapse the Russian economy almost overnight if it chooses.

Putin’s “direct” comments are a repetition of the threat of nuclear bombs/WWIII that he has made many times and this threat alone – disregard how real it is – is extremely useful. It has directly resulted in the “some, but not enough” policy on arms deliveries, such as the supply of Leopard 2 tanks or F-16 fighters, and heavy restrictions on what Ukraine can attack in Russia.

It has resulted in the bizarre situation where Russia is free to strike any target anywhere in Ukraine with its missiles, but there is a de facto no-fly ban over all of Russia, including the border regions, imposed on Ukraine by Washington. Russia was parking Katushka rocket launchers on the Belgorod highway, just behind the border, and pounding Kharkiv, and Ukraine was powerless to hit back (until May when the rules were loosened a little). This policy is a direct result of the threat of a direct clash, but once again that red line was crossed, and nothing happened.

Which brings us to the actual chance Russia will hit Nato if the missile permission is granted. On balance, it seems that this red line can be crossed like the others, and nothing will happen. However, while the chances that Putin will start WWIII, it is a non-zero possibility.

The problem is that every stage in this war, starting with the invasion itself, Putin has taken the most extreme option available to him. We opined thatPutin had in fact gone crazy just after the war started, in the sense he has a distorted view of reality that is deeply paranoid when it comes to Nato and that he is also prepared to sacrifice Russia’s well-being for the sake of its security – the most Soviet thing about him.

I should add at this point that from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy point of view he doesn’t care if his conflict drags the world into WWIII. Why should he? On the one hand he has been told from the start that the West will back him with all he needs to win; that promise, made by former UK prime minister Boris Johnson, was what killed the Istanbul peace deal – a good deal. Secondly, Ukraine is facing an existential threat, and his people are dying in the hundreds of thousands. His first, and only, duty is to save them. So, having Germans, French and Americans join his fight will lead to victory.

Blinken said it again yesterday at a press conference in Poland on the way home: “We believe in a Ukrainian victory”, which is a blatant lie, as evidenced by his reluctance to give permission to use long-range missiles, for starters, which could turn the tide of the war.

As a result of all this the creeping escalation has moved a step closer to all out war. We are in a very dangerous place now, simply as there is very little escalation road left in front of us. Only a month ago Ukraine was inching towards a ceasefire deal, and now we are a stone’s throw from WWIII. Blinken has a very difficult choice to make.

PS. What I think will happen next is the permission will be given. Russia will respond in some shocking and horrible way like targeting the president’s offices in Kyiv. That will take us from the cusp of WWIII to the brink. Then someone like Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Chinese President Xi Jinping will step in to do that mooted second peace conference. But of course, in war things can spin out of control very easily.