Some tidbits from Wikipedia:
Fiona Hill, Russian expert and advisor for several Republican and Democratic US administrations, most recently for Donald Trump, has stated in regards to the war in Ukraine and a global conflict: "We are already in the middle of a World War III, whether we have fully grasped it or not."[79]
In an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy argued that with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, "nobody really knows whether it may have already started [World War III]."[80] Later, in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria, he claimed that failure to directly negotiate with president Putin "would mean that this is a third World War".[81]
From Wikipedia entry on WWIII:
Main article:
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine
On 24 February 2022,
Russia's president
Vladimir Putin ordered a large-scale invasion of
Ukraine, marking a major escalation of the
Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. The invasion has been described as the largest military conflict in Europe since
World War II.
[59] The invasion received widespread
international condemnation, including new
sanctions imposed on Russia, which notably included Russia's ban from
SWIFT and the closing of all Western airspaces to Russian planes.
[60] Moreover, both prior to and during the invasion, some of the 30
member states of NATO have been providing Ukraine with arms and other material support.
On 27 February, president Putin, who had already threatened about the
nuclear arsenal of his country before the beginning of the invasion,
[61][62] ordered
Russian nuclear deterrent forces on high alert,
[63][64] amid tensions with NATO over Ukraine.
[65][66][67] The
United States, seeking a de-escalation, decided not to increase their nuclear alert system;
[68] on the following day, president
Joe Biden stated that "Americans should not be worried about a nuclear war".
[69][70] On 2 March, Russia's foreign affairs minister
Sergey Lavrov said that "if World War III were to take place, it would involve nuclear weapons and be destructive".
[71][72] On 5 March, President Putin described a decision by the West to impose unprecedented sanctions against his regime as "akin to declaring war".
[73] On 11 March, Biden proclaimed that while the United States would, as part of NATO, "defend every single inch of NATO territory with [its] full might", NATO would not "fight a war against Russia in Ukraine", as such "direct conflict between NATO and Russia is World War III, something we must strive to prevent".
[74]
Various experts, analysts and others have described the crisis as a close call to a third world war,
[75][76][77] while others have suggested the contrary.
[78] Fiona Hill, Russian expert and advisor for several Republican and Democratic US administrations, most recently for
Donald Trump, has stated in regards to the war in Ukraine and a global conflict: "We are already in the middle of a World War III, whether we have fully grasped it or not."
[79] In an interview with
NBC News anchor
Lester Holt, Ukrainian president
Volodymyr Zelenskyy argued that with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, "nobody really knows whether it may have already started [World War III]."
[80] Later, in an interview with
CNN's
Fareed Zakaria, he claimed that failure to directly negotiate with president Putin "would mean that this is a third World War".
[81] On 14 April, Israeli historian
Yuval Noah Harari described the war in Ukraine as "the most dangerous moment in world history since the Cuban missile crisis".
[82]