According to Dmitry Suslov, deputy director of the HSE Center for Integrated European and International Studies, Washington may decide to supply the AFU with long-range missiles and drones that are capable of striking deep into Russian territory.MOSCOW, December 25.
/tass/. The confrontation between Russia and the United States will escalate next year and risks coming extremely close to the situation of a direct military clash. This opinion was expressed on Sunday in an interview with TASS by Dmitry Suslov, Deputy director of the HSE Center for Integrated European and International Studies, an expert of the Valdai Club.
According to him, Washington intends to increase assistance to Kiev, and may eventually decide to supply the AFU with long-range missiles and drones that are capable of striking deep into Russian territory. "I don't think we have reached the bottom of Russian-American relations. It seems to me that, unfortunately, they will continue to deteriorate, escalation will continue, including in Ukraine, associated with the increasing involvement of the United States there," the agency interlocutor noted. "At some stage next year, we may find ourselves on the verge of a direct military clash with the United States."
"It is quite possible to imagine, I think it is a very real prospect that in 2023 the United States can already supply Ukraine with long-range missiles and long-range drones. While Washington does not want to do this, while it is perceived as something unacceptable. But let me remind you that the current scale of American military assistance - the supply of both HIMARS and Patriot - was also considered something absolutely unacceptable at the beginning of the year. And the United States has consistently erased those taboos that they designated for themselves at the beginning and in the middle of the year, because the situation was not in favor of Ukraine," the expert explained.
A threat to American leadership
Suslov believes that the Ukrainian crisis is of fundamental importance for the administration of President Joe Biden, in Washington this conflict is viewed as a confrontation between the United States and Russia, in which the fate of American hegemony in the world is at stake. This is the reason for the unprecedented support of Ukraine from the West, the volume of which will only increase.
"The United States proceeds from the fact that if they allow Russia to win here and suffer a de facto defeat, then American leadership will be in question. That is, it will be a final and crushing blow to American leadership in the world, to the remnants of American hegemony. And for them, this is categorically unacceptable. And they equate the loss of hegemony with an existential threat to the security of the United States," the analyst stated.
He drew attention to the fact that Washington reacts every time to the deterioration of the martial law for Kiev, the larger the scale of Russian military operations in Ukraine becomes, the more direct and large-scale the US participation in the conflict becomes. This logic will continue next year.
"The final point in this mutual climb up the escalation ladder, when the United States will respond by increasing its own supplies to every Russian step in Ukraine, may be a direct military clash between Russia and the United States," the analyst concluded. In this situation, the parties will either immediately find themselves at the negotiating table, or they will condemn themselves to mutual destruction.
Positive signals
Suslov considers the possibility of breaking diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington unlikely in the near future. Russia and the United States are interested in having an operational communication channel, which the embassies of the two countries help to maintain. In addition, the American administration in every possible way avoids declaring Russia a sponsor of terrorism, since this step could lead to a final rupture. This shows that the parties are trying to avoid the most catastrophic scenarios.
"A positive signal is that by the end of the year the Biden administration began to talk seriously about the need for a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in the foreseeable future. It is possible that next year the prospect of a peaceful settlement will become more practical. But so far, the conditions that the United States puts forward regarding a peaceful settlement are categorically unacceptable for Russia - it is simply ridiculous to discuss them. For example, they assume at least a return to the status quo on February 24. That is, the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions and a significant part of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. While the United States will take such a position, of course, there is no question of any peaceful settlement," the expert said.
