By David Sole
Top US and UK officials have been discussing a dangerous escalation of their part in their proxy war of Ukraine against the Russian Federation. This new step would allow Western supplied long-range missiles to be used to bomb targets deep inside Russia’s borders. Up until now those weapons have been limited to use by Ukraine to its former territory of Crimea and the four provinces in the south and east now incorporated into the Russian Federation.
President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in the White House on September 13 “to discuss how far Western allies might be willing to go to help Ukraine defend itself, including the possibility of allowing Ukraine to use European-made long-range missiles to strike certain targets deep inside Russia” reported ABC News.
The weapons in question, British Storm Shadow missiles and US ATACMS are already in the hands of the Ukrainians as part of hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of military equipment supplied to Ukraine over the past two and a half years. Media reports indicate that the UK is pressing hard for lifting the ban to happen.
It should be noted that Ukraine has already been using drones to attack Russian military and civilian targets all across western Russia, including several strikes on Moscow itself. But Russian President Putin has issued a stern warning against the use of the long-range missiles into Russia’s interior.
Even before the Biden-Starmer meeting President Putin “warned that Russia would be ‘at war’ with the United States and its allies if they lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range Western weapons.” The issue, according to Russia, is that “the Ukrainian army does not have the ability to program long-range missiles or the satellite data necessary for their targeting, relying on NATO military personnel for those tasks” according to NBC News.
NBC went on to quote Putin as saying “this will mean that NATO countries, the US and European countries are at war with Russia. And if this is so, then, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us.”
Most military analysts agree, however, that isolated long-range missile strikes deep inside Russian territory cannot change the course of the war. Russia, with its vastly larger army and enormous supply of tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery is dominating the many battlefields in the conflict. Russia also has absolute air superiority including fighter jets, missiles and drones. ABC News quoted one US official who spoke anonymously that “the US remains deeply skeptical that a change in policy by the US and UK allies could shift the tide in Ukraine…’We’re really not talking about something that’ll have an impact on the battlefield.’”
It is Ukraine’s mounting losses in battle that are driving the imperialist Western puppet masters to consider this escalation, despite the sharp warning from President Putin. In the Donetsk People’s Republic all reports from Western and Russian sources note that Ukraine is steadily being pushed back.
For over 10 years Ukraine has held and fortified the southern city of Vuhledar. Today it has been virtually surrounded, cut off from resupply and will either be abandoned or soon fall to a Russian assault. To the northwest the critical Ukrainian supply hub of Pokrovsk is being bombed, had its water and electricity cut off and faces Russian advances from several directions. Similar reports are coming in from other battle fronts.
Ukraine’s wild incursion into Russia’s Kursk region in early August captured much media attention. Thousands of Ukraine’s best troops and heavy equipment punched through across the Sumy border and quickly occupied a sparsely populated region that was barely defended. Hopes of capturing the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant faded when Russia rushed in troops to halt the Ukrainian advance and did so without having to divert Russian forces from the main battlefields.
Russia has been using its air superiority to pinpoint and destroy hundreds of armored vehicles and annihilate Ukrainian troops that are spread out across a forested area with nowhere to go. Having brought in sufficient forces, Russia is now carrying out a counteroffensive against the Ukrainians in Kursk. Russia is also taking advantage of its air supremacy to find and destroy Ukrainian troops and supply columns that are still in Ukraine’s Sumy province heading into the Kursk salient.
Direct US and UK participation in long-range missile attacks into Russia, despite President Putin’s clear warning, would be a reckless and useless escalation of the conflict. It would push Russia to take some retaliatory action that could risk direct conflict with US/NATO forces. Unfortunately neither the US, the UK nor the European nations show any interest in seeking a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
As it stands, Russia’s battlefield gains will continue relentlessly heading for a collapse of the Ukrainian military. Western imperialism, seeing their proxy war failing to achieve their goal of putting NATO bases in Ukraine on Russia’s western border or even weakening Russia, don’t seem to be able to do anything but consider dangerous escalation and a wider war. Anti-war forces in the West should be aware of these dangers and mobilize powerful opposition to imperialist escalation.
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