evidence: On 19 February, Ukrainian President Zelensky gave an impassioned speech at the Munich Security Conference insisting that Ukraine must have a clear path to join Nato, and expressing regret that Ukraine had given up its nuclear arsenal at the end of the Soviet Union, then the world’s third biggest. In the third week of February, the Ukrainian military dramatically increased its shelling of the Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, as reported by observers from the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). It is likely that this step-up in the Ukrainian attack had the blessing of the US and Nato.