The Russian SAM commander gives the order to destroy them and listens as his crews go through their firing sequences. The Ukrainian fighters are fast and will be out of range in only a few minutes. He points out the blips on his screen to his sergeant, who quickly reports what they are seeing to their commander. The 21-year-old conscript monitoring the system’s radar identifies the two planes among a number of other aircraft flying over the Black Sea. Though on alert, the commander of the Russian anti-aircraft unit operating S-300 surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems in southern Ukraine and his soldiers have barely slept over the past few weeks.

Two Ukrainian SU-27 fighter aircraft fly southwest from Ukraine to make an emergency landing in Romania, after fleeing Russian forces. What follows is a hypothetical scenario illustrating just one possible pathway to a global, catastrophic nuclear war. History is replete with similar instances of humanity stumbling into devastating conflict. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is a prime example of a regional conflict that could inadvertently escalate beyond any of the protagonists’ expectations. “It’s not only trade, it’s not only commodities, but also a presence that is becoming very important in technological areas.” However, Beijing has insisted in previous media reports that its deep space ground station in Argentina is for civilian use only, adding that “the suspicions of some individuals have ulterior motives.” Watch the video to find out why China has its eye on Latin America.NTI experts believe that the most likely use of nuclear weapons in any scenario would be unintentional-that humanity would blunder into a nuclear war. So, we are entering into a new phase of the Chinese-Latin America relationship. Roberto Garcia Moritan, the former Argentinian deputy minister for foreign affairs, said: “There is a space station of China, with Chinese military personnel. Belt and Road initiative starts in 2013, and what you start seeing is a lot of loans from Chinese policy banks to governments in the region that are used to hire Chinese contractors to develop infrastructure.” Besides infrastructure projects, China has also poured money into politically sensitive areas in the region, such as telecommunications, nuclear energy and space. Ruben Gonzalez Vicente from the University of Birmingham said: “From 2000 to 2010, most Chinese investment in Latin America went into the extractive industries, into mining and oil in South America mostly. Between 20, it invested more than $130 billion in the region, including $60 billion in Brazil, $27 billion in Peru, $27 billion in Chile, while Argentina received $12 billion of Chinese official foreign direct investment. She added: “The region also plays an important role in China’s broader energy security calculations, and that’s one reason why we see China continuing to engage with Venezuela, despite the many challenges there.” China also invests directly in key sectors through investments, mergers and acquisitions. “In Latin America, China’s looking for soy, above all, to address what is a fairly critical food security challenge at home. The region presents an attractive investment proposition for China because of its resources and markets, Margaret Myers, director of the Asia and Latin America Program at the U.S.-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue, told CNBC. Even though thousands of kilometers separate them, China became Latin America & the Caribbean’s second-largest trading partner in 2021, with almost $450 billion worth of goods exchanging hands, up from $12 billion in 2000, or almost a 40-fold increase. But Venezuela is just one of the many Latin American countries that China is courting.

The meetings culminated in an “all weather strategic partnership” in 2023. In the last 10 years, President Xi Jinping of China has had at least five different meetings with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Defcon warning system