This may include advertisements from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. Tensions between Moscow and Kiev reached boiling point earlier this year after Russia massed more troops near the contested borders. Since 2014, more than 14,000 people have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
In September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that an all-out war with Russia could be possible. Speaking at the Yalta European Strategy YES summit, Mr Zelenskiy said: I think there can be. It's the worst thing that could happen, but unfortunately there is that possibility. If the tensions between Moscow and Ukraine continue to rise, Russia's deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has warned that there could be a repeat of the Cuban missile crisis.
The Cuban missile crisis was a one-month, four-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. It escalated into an international crisis when American troops deployed missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of similar ballistic missiles in Cuba. The Cuban Missile Crisis remains a defining moment in the US national security and nuclear war preparation, despite the short time frame. The Cold War escalated into a full-scale nuclear war, and it is often considered the closest to it.