"A Full-Scale War Isn't A Foregone Conclusion", Warns Russian Think Tank Head

Ahead of the "Russia and China: Cooperation in a New Era" conference in Moscow on Thursday, Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) Director General Ivan Timofeev told Russian state-owned news agency Tass about the increasing likelihood of a full-scale war between Russia and the West. 

"A full-scale war is not is not a foregone conclusion, but unfortunately, its likelihood is growing," Timofeev said in an interview with Tass. He said, "One option is that there will be a great rise in confrontation between us. At the root of this is the Ukraine issue, as the West continues to provide large-scale military assistance to Kyiv."

At a separate meeting on Thursday, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg told foreign ministers about the need to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons to penetrate deep inside Russia.

Timofeev warned about the rising possibility of a direct conflict with NATO:

"A number of officials, particularly in France and the United Kingdom, have said that individual military units from NATO countries may be deployed to Ukraine. If they take part in military operations against Russian forces, they will become a legitimate target for our army.

"Let’s hope this possible escalation involves conventional arms and not nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, NATO is spending ten times as much as Russia - if not more - on defense. It’s certainly a dangerous scenario."

The RIAC director general continued: 

"The NATO leadership has made statements that no troops will be sent to Ukraine, and a number of EU politicians have said that this is counterproductive. That means they aren’t united on the issue."

Timofeev added:

"As for Russia, we must take every possible scenario into account. We have the capacity to deter these threats.

"However, such a scenario will cause irreparable damage to everyone." 

He concluded that the West will likely continue assisting Ukraine through weapons and equipment supplies, indicating these "dividing lines between" Russia and the West "may be there for decades." 

Daniel Blake, Asia and emerging market equity strategist at Morgan Stanley wrote in a note to clients in April that the shift towards a multipolar world has been underway for the last five years. With that comes a war cycle, and, as we've penned before, a splurge in defense spending is bullish for defense companies.