Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles
Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles
With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.
While they won't be able to reach Moscow with these, even from within Kursk, I am willing to bet the authorization was withheld on intelligence grounds. A lot of things in the war make sense if you look at it from the perspective that arms support can't be guaranteed.
Instead of letting Ukraine just burn through weapons, the US and allies have waited until they have the full operational capability to deploy the weapons with extreme effectiveness. They've had ATACMS for a while, so I suspect they held off deep strikes until the most effective targets had been identified and the likelihood of effective strike was near certain.
Kremlin. Go for Kremlin.
wow. kudos for being the "now that it's too late to have an impact, i'm going to do the thing i should have done many months ago" president
At the start of the invasion Russia was claiming they finally had hypersonic nuclear missles. Meaning they could get nukes past defense systems. That is the reason the US was hesitant to let things escalate.
Since then we’ve found out that Russias hypersonic missles had some misfires and still didn’t have the ability to steer at hypersonic speeds if I remember right.
That plus the fact that Trump is months away from helping Russia changes the strategy.
Sounds like your average president
Lame-duck presidency in a nutshell.
Now give them a thousand tomahawks and the location of every single Putin palace.
Unfortunately, only allowed in Kursk
They only have 300 km range. They are very nice but still. Pretty sure Ukraine has struck further inland with drones.
I believe NYT makes you login, even on a gift link. Here is a TLDR:
President Biden has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike Russian and North Korean forces in Russia, a significant shift in U.S. policy. This decision comes in response to Russia’s introduction of North Korean troops into the conflict and their anticipated assault on Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region.
The move reflects growing concerns over Ukraine’s ability to withstand simultaneous assaults while defending territory. The authorization aims to bolster Ukraine’s defense, target high-value military assets, and deter North Korean involvement. However, it has sparked debate among U.S. officials over escalation risks, as Russia might retaliate against the U.S. or its allies.
President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to reduce U.S. support for Ukraine, is set to take office in two months, adding urgency to the decision. The Ukrainian strategy may include using captured Russian territory in Kursk as leverage in potential future negotiations. Meanwhile, the risk of Russian countermeasures remains a central concern for Biden’s administration and its allies.
My take: I’ve been waiting on this since the US election. It’s sound strategy of we believe Putin won’t want to escalate with NATO before Trump takes office.
Better late than never, I guess.
Good move by Biden.
Ah. Some fireworks before the show is over.
something about this seems kind of fucky. the time to do this was years ago. what is brandon's calculation? that russia won't do shit because their bitch is taking over? or is he finally convinced, somehow, that russia could never do shit in the first place?
I think north Korea entering the fight likely has a lot to do with it.
Plus now trump will have to actively take this permission away as opposed to not giving it.
it just seems like something outside of brandon's ability, doing something strategic to fuck trump. the north korea angle i agree with.
I'm gonna preface this by saying I totally don't support this so don't shoot the messenger, but half of it was that Russia doesn't have the resources to prolong this war indefinitely. For every dollar Ukraine spends Russia loses a couple, for every Ukrainian casualty there are well over half a dozen Russian casualties. Russia staying in this war is catastrophic for Russia so there are geopolitical reasons for people wanting this war to not end but to continue. Eventually Russia would be forced to give up.
But, now time is suddenly on Russia's side because the new administration will likely withold aid in an attempt to broker a deal that will almost certainly involve ceding Russian-occupied land, so it's basically a Hail Mary play right now. No more playing defense, push right to the end zone before the buzzer goes off. If they can actually strike where DPRK troops are staging, hopefully Europe can continue in the absence of the US, that kind of thing
Lame-duck presidency.
Doing it before can affect the election. He didn't know Kamala was gonna lose anyways.
I feel like I'm alone in perceiving this as a bad thing. Ukraine will never win this war because Russia will just throw warm biddies in the front lines like they always have. And if something like this does end up making an impact they can fall back on nuclear weapons and then we're all dead.
What am I missing here?
uh, MAD? russia isn't going to use strategic nuclear weapons.
Russia isn't gonna nuke us. At most he'll nuke Ukraine. Nuking Ukraine will not lead to western countries nuking Russia, but if russia nukes a nato country, they're dead too.
Nuking Ukraine would cause a world war.