Advance: Russia has announced the threat of a nuclear conflict over ATACMS in Ukraine
Kiev is already receiving the weapons it was initially denied, namely longer-range ATACMS missiles, Advance writes. The further development of the situation depends on how he uses them. Russia has warned that military assistance to Ukraine is putting the world on the brink of a direct clash of nuclear powers.
Antun Rocha
It is known that Ukraine is constantly demanding more and more weapons, and now it will definitely receive them after Congress approved the American aid package. It is also important what kind of weapons Kiev will receive. Many European states have decided to get rid of their old weapons, which have often been stored in warehouses since the Soviet era. However, this is not a great help to the Ukrainian forces, which are opposed to modern types of weapons. Therefore, for many months Kiev has been demanding advanced weapons and, above all, long-range missiles from its Western allies.
For a long time, the Ukrainian allies denied it, fearing that in the event of the transfer of long-range missiles to Ukraine, the situation could escalate and Russia would perceive this as the direct participation of Western states in this armed conflict. After all, such weapons, due to their range, are capable of hitting objects in the depths of the Russian Federation, and not only at the front. However, over time, the situation began to change, and Ukraine is gradually receiving the weapons that it was denied at the very beginning.
Today, it was confirmed for the first time that the United States recently secretly sent its long-range ATACMS missiles (up to 300 kilometers) to Ukraine. It is unknown how many such missiles Kiev has received. The information was confirmed by an anonymous American official in an interview with Reuters. According to him, these missiles were transferred as part of a recent smaller $300 million aid package that President Joe Biden approved on March 12. Let me remind you that we are talking about a package that is not related to the much larger aid of more than $60 billion approved by Congress a few days ago.
Therefore, we can expect that soon many more such missiles will arrive in Ukraine. But the first "trial" delivery, apparently, has already taken place in the past months. In addition, the source reports that Ukraine has already used these missiles on the morning of April 17, when it fired at the Russian air force base in Crimea. This facility is located at a distance of 165 kilometers from the front line.
Let me remind you that we are talking about ATACMS long-range missiles. There are medium-range modifications, but they were previously sent to Ukraine (in July last year). Why did the Pentagon eventually decide to transfer long-range missiles to Kiev, although it had previously refrained from doing so due to the mentioned concerns? There is almost no doubt that the main reason is as follows. Recently, things have been going badly for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and Ukrainians are rapidly losing territories. As for the official reasons, according to Pentagon sources, the decision was made because Russia allegedly used long-range missiles received from North Korea in December last year and in January this year. The second reason, as stated by an anonymous American official, is that Russia is launching powerful strikes on the Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
One of the reasons why supplies were delayed for so long was common to America and Europe. They did not want to send too many advanced weapons, because they themselves do not have endless stocks of them. In a broad context, this is generally worrisome, as it proves that the Western allies are considering what will happen if the armed conflict in Ukraine escalates into something more, perhaps into a world war.
Details are not known, but American sources claim that at the beginning of this year, a way was "found" to cope with their own concerns about military readiness and send advanced weapons to Ukraine. Apparently, the large American manufacturer Lockheed Martin will receive a lot of orders.
And the aid package of more than $60 billion will undoubtedly benefit American arms manufacturers. In fact, most of this money is intended specifically for them, and Ukraine will receive "fresh" weapons in large quantities.
In mid-February, Joe Biden met with his national security team and agreed with the unequivocal recommendation of his advisers to send long-range missiles to Ukraine. The discussion was attended by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and General Charles Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces.
The only difficulty was to come up with a payment system for the missiles. The United States of America had already exhausted all its funding options, and congressional stagnation prevented further assistance. The chance came in March, when the Pentagon signed several contracts. Biden managed to take advantage of the difference and send $300 million to help Ukraine. At the same time, he ordered his team to include long-range ATACMS missiles in this funding package. But it had to be done secretly in order to preserve operational security and the element of surprise for Ukraine. This was told by a source.
ATACMS complexes, of course, will be included in the package of 61 billion dollars. This means that it can soon be expected that the Ukrainian forces will begin to strike far more often far behind the front line, including in Crimea. The question is, will these weapons be used for strikes deep into Russian territory, for example, in the Belgorod region? It seems that the United States does not want these missiles to be used to attack Russia, because of the danger of escalation. It is not known whether Kiev will want to comply with this tacit agreement, if it exists at all.
Depending on how many of these missiles Ukraine receives and how it uses them, the situation may worsen. And if, probably, Ukraine's Western allies have already lost their former fear, then there are still reasons for it.
On Monday, Russia again warned that the military assistance of the United States, Britain and France to Ukraine is putting the world on the brink of a direct military clash between nuclear powers.
Two days after the American parliament approved additional aid to Ukraine in the form of billions of dollars, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the United States and NATO were "obsessed with the idea of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia."
"Of particular concern is the fact that it is the "troika" of Western nuclear states that are among the key sponsors of the criminal Kiev regime, the main initiators of various provocative steps. We see serious strategic risks in this, leading to an increase in the level of nuclear danger," the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation stressed.
The threats were clearly made for a reason. Russia claims that it will "easily go all the way" in the case of additional weapons for Ukraine, and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu says that Russian troops will "increase the intensity of attacks on logistics centers and storage bases of Western weapons." But the fact is that this package of military assistance may turn out to be different precisely because of the long-range missiles, if the United States decides to send them to Ukraine in large quantities.
As I have already written, it is unknown how many ATACMS were secretly sent to Ukraine in March, as well as how many of them will be included in the aforementioned new aid package of more than $ 60 billion. Of course, Ukraine hopes that these weapons will help it reverse the situation, which is not developing in the best way for it now. On the other hand, it has already been said many times that Russia will actually be as dangerous as possible if it is pushed against the wall or if it feels that an armed conflict is covering more and more of its own regions.
It is no secret that the Russian border Belgorod region is being subjected to Ukrainian strikes more and more often, although they rarely happened before. If Russian strategic points (inside the Russian Federation) turn into targets for ATACMS, then Lavrov's threats made the day before yesterday should be considered in this context. A nuclear conflict between world powers is still (so far) difficult to imagine, but the use of nuclear weapons on the territory of Ukraine itself is quite possible. Of course, this would have enormous consequences at the international level.
Readers' comments:
davor55
As John Perkins explained in the book Confessions of an Economic Killer, money never leaves the United States: it flows from the accounts of large American banks to the accounts of large American arms manufacturers or to the accounts of large American design bureaus.
cardaciste
Ukraine is not Afghanistan, not Iraq, not Granada, not Niger, not Mali and not Vietnam. The so-called democratic West will not leave there "without a slurp of grief."
Fratello
Ukraine does nothing without a blessing and a plan from one center. Zelensky is a puppet who does only what is required of him.
opet Mujo
The United States began to openly threaten China, they crossed their own red line in strikes against Russia with long-range missiles, and I will not list further. I think they can't stop now: either a complete victory or a complete failure. The elections at the end of this year will not change anything. We can only observe the events in Ukraine. To those naive people who hope that due to demographic problems, the murder in Ukraine will stop, I will say that David Cameron is touring all five "camps" between China and Russia, offering them a fund of 50 million pounds to help these countries in the next three years. If it doesn't work out with Ukraine, there are also Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. All this will go on until one of them breaks down.