Today Britain, the US, Germany and France came together in a show of defiance against Russia for the Kremlin’s role in the Salisbury poison attack, calling it “an assault on UK sovereignty” and a breach of international law that “threatens the security of us all”.
Tensions have been running high since Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a park bench on March 4 and taken to hospital in a critical condition, where they remain.
The UK has expelled 23 Russian diplomats with Moscow announcing its intentions to do the same.
Shortly before 4pm this afternoon, the Russian Embassy in the UK tweeted: “Decision to break official contacts with Russia undermines UK standing in the world”.
Yesterday, it tweeted a picture of a freezing thermometer with the statement: “The temperature of Russia-GB relations drops to -23 but we are not afraid of cold weather.”
NATO’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said the attack took place “against the backdrop of a reckless pattern of Russian behaviour” including its interference in Georgia and Ukraine, and attempts to subvert democratic elections.
He said: “We do not want a new Cold War. And we do not want to be dragged into a new arms race … But let there be no doubt. Nato will defend all allies against any threat.”
What is a cold war?
A cold war is a conflict between two sides which does not involve warfare or military action but can be supported through regional conflicts known as proxy wars.
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Russia v UK war 2018: Tensions are high between Theresa May and Vladimir Putin
It is defined in the English Oxford Dictionary as “a state of political hostility between countries characterised by threats, propaganda, and other measures short of open warfare”.
The most well-known Cold War refers to the political tension and rivalry between the Soviet Bloc countries and the West from the end of World War II until 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Where does the term originate from?
The term cold war was used sparingly before 1945, with some crediting the fourteenth-century Spanish writer Don Juan Manuel for first using it to refer to the conflict between Christianity and Islam.
Critics say the word he adopted in Spanish actually meant tepid but was misinterpreted in a later translation of his work in the 19th century.
English novelist and poet George Orwell is credited with bringing the expression to wider audiences in his essay You and the Atomic Bomb.
Published in a newspaper article in 1945, it described Orwell’s fears of a permanent ideological confrontation between the Soviet Union and Western powers, with the threat of a world living under nuclear war with a “peace that is no peace” in a permanent “cold war”.
Now the expression refers to confrontations involving indirect conflict.
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Russia v UK war 2018: Theresa May visited the scene of the suspected nerve agent attack in Salisbury
What was The Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West?
The Cold War was a struggle between two major superpowers after the defeat of Nazi Germany, with a major point of tension being the spread of Communism from the east to western democracies.
Involving the Eastern Bloc (the Soviet Union and its satellite states) and the Western Bloc (the United States, NATO allies and others), the fallout was enacted on political, economic and propaganda fronts.
The two sides had been involved in an uneasy partnership while trying to defeat the Nazis, which soon unravelled after victory in May 1945.
The first major crisis began in 1948 with the Berlin Blockade, but the situation deteriorated during the 1950s with the invasion of Egypt by Israel, then the UK and France in the Suez Crisis.
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Russia v UK war 2018: Units from the Russian Navy’s Baltic Fleet during a military exercise
Frankly, Russia should go away and should shut up.
The threat of nuclear warfare between both sides grew after military deployment by the Americans in Italy and Turkey, leading the Soviets to do the same in Cuba, resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Cold War hostilities began to subside in the 1980s under the administration of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who sought to liberalise aspects of Soviet involvement in proxy wars and democratise the Soviet political system.
In 1989, as a number of revolutions began to overthrow communist regimes in central and eastern Europe, Gorbachev remained neutral in a bid to keep the peace.
The Soviet Union eventually collapsed in 1991, leading to the end of the Cold War and a creation of 15 independent nations, with a democratically-elected, anti-communist leader.
Will there be a second Cold War?
Renewed geopolitical tensions between Russia and the West have ignited fears of a Cold War II.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the final decision on retaliatory measures “will, of course, be made by the Russian president”, adding: “There is no doubt that he will choose the variant that best of all corresponds to the interests of the Russian Federation”.
On Thursday, UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson said Russia “should go away and shut up” when asked about possible Russian countermeasures to the sanctions.