Bidens decision to allow strikes deep inside Russia will enrage Putin and could spark broader war, former US colonel warns amid fears ATACMS greenlight will trigger spiral of bloodshed before Trump takes over
US President Joe Bidens decision to give Ukraine the green light to blast targets inside Russia with US-supplied long-range missiles may trigger a broader war and lead to yet more bloodshed, former American military chiefs and analysts warn.
US President Joe Bidens decision to give Ukraine the green light to blast targets inside Russia with US-supplied long-range missiles may trigger a broader war and lead to yet more bloodshed, former American military chiefs and analysts warn.
Retired Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis warned yesterday that allowing Kyiv to use Americas ATACMS rockets even in a limited capacity would enrage Putin and likely broaden the war just weeks before Donald Trump arrives in the White House.
I feel its going to enrage Putin, which is problematic... ATACMS are not going to make a major difference quite frankly, but what it will do is put Mr. Trump as he assumes the presidency in a much worse situation.
What we dont need at this late hour is the Biden administration exacerbating a pretty bad situation, he told Fox News.
Bidens decision, which signals a dramatic U-turn in US policy, comes as Russian and Ukrainian forces are fighting to gain as much territory as possible ahead of Trumps return to the Oval Office amid fears the president-elect may seek to force a ceasefire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has long pressed his Western allies to allow his country to strike military targets deeper inside Russia, saying the ban had made it impossible for Kyiv to try to stop Russian attacks on its cities and electrical grids.
But Kyivs Western backers had resisted his pleas amid fears that doing so would cross a red line set by Putin.
In September the Russian President said that he would consider Western nations direct participants in the war in Ukraine if they were to provide Kyiv with the ability to strike targets inside Russia.
He has also suggested he may provide Russian missiles to Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad as a course of retaliation.
Chris Pleasance, Host of MailOnlines War On Tape YouTube series, said: Bidens decision is designed to help the Ukrainians hold their ground and inflict even heavier casualties on Putins army.
This may well lead to a spiral of bloodshed on both sides before Trump takes over and tries to enforce a peace. Whether either side will be willing to negotiate after so much blood has been spilled remains to be seen.
Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) are coveted by Kyiv as they can strike deep into Russian held territory
Retired Lt. Col. Robert Maginnis warned yesterday that allowing Kyiv to use Americas ATACMS rockets even in a limited capacity would enrage Putin
ATACMS - Army Tactical Missile - being fired from an M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Syste
Biden is set to leave office in a matter of weeks and will be replaced by Trump
Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, according to several sources, with the first deep strikes likely to be carried out using ATACMS rockets, which have a range of up to 190 miles, or 300km.
For now, it is believed Ukraines Armed Forces will be able to use ATACMS rockets to strike targets in the Kursk region, where Vladimir Putin is said to be amassing some 50,000 soldiers, including troops from North Korea, to repel a Ukrainian incursion.
It remains to be seen whether Britain and France will follow suit by allowing Kyivs troops to attack Russian targets with Storm Shadow and SCALP long-range missiles, which have an operational range of around 155 miles.
But were Ukraines Western allies to lift the ban entirely, Kyivs soldiers would be able to strike hundreds of prized Russian military and logistics assets deep inside Russia at any point along the 800-mile-long front line.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think-tank, has established a list of nearly 250 high value military and paramilitary targets within range of the weapons that could be demolished by Ukraine.
Among the main targets that the ISW assesses Ukraine may seek to strike include as many as 16 Russian air bases, a slew of brigade and division headquarters, artillery and missile units central to Russias air defence capabilities, and a variety of logistics hubs supplying Vladimir Putins units on the frontlines.
Targeting these sites could cripple Russian logistics, command, and combat support, significantly reducing Moscows offensive capabilities in occupied Ukrainian territory - even if Putins troops redeploy most strategic bombing aircraft further east.
The overall supply of ATACMS missiles is short, so US officials and analysts have questioned whether allowing Ukraine to use the weapons systems is really worth it given the potential consequences that could ensue.
Jennifer Kavanagh, Director of Military Analysis at the Defense Priorities think tank, said: Expanding Ukraines ability to launch offensive strikes with Western weapons inside Russia will not alter the trajectory of the war or help Kyiv gain an advantage against a better equipped and more resilient adversary.
Any escalation could reverberate on Ukraine itself. With the Biden administration on its way out and the incoming Trump administration indicating an intention to end the war, Putin has little incentive to act with restraint in his retaliation toward Kyiv.
But proponents of the policy say that even a few strikes deeper inside Russia would force its military to change deployments and expend more of its resources.
George Barros, leader of the Russia team and GEOINT team at ISW that compiled the list of targets, sought to highlight the way in which ATACMS could impact Putins troops and campaigned for the Biden administration to allow strikes beyond Kursk as a result.
Reminder that there are hundreds of valid, legal, legitimate, and operationally consequential military targets in range of Ukrainian ATACMS, he wrote.
The Biden Administrations shift to allow ATACMS use in Russia is a good thing, but it must extend beyond Kursk Oblast.
File image of a US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) firing a missile into the East Sea during a South Korea-US joint missile drill
Ukraine has already authored several attacks deep into Russia, including on targets in the capital Moscow, a number of oil refineries and ammunition dumps.
But those strikes have been conducted by kamikaze drones which are considerably limited in their scale and are highly susceptible to Russian jamming and air defence systems.
Ukraines Western allies earlier this year delivered the first tranche of F-16 fighter jets, but these aircraft remain subject to restrictions and can only be used in a limited capacity, for example, to conduct air defence missions or support operations on Ukrainian soil.
Zelensky has been pleading with Kyivs allies for months to take their support a step further by letting Ukraine fire Western missiles to limit Moscows ability to launch attacks across the border.
Those weapons have already been used to great effect in Russian-occupied Ukraine and in Crimea.
Putin has long warned that Moscow would consider Ukraines Western allies directly party to the conflict if their weapons are used by Kyivs troops to strike targets on Russian soil, setting out a series of red lines that Western leaders appear reluctant to test.
In June, he issued a thinly veiled threat saying he would consider providing Western foes with Russian missiles to strike the Wests assets if the US or European nations went ahead with allowing Ukraine to hit Russia with ATACMS or Storm Shadow missiles.
If someone is thinking it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, why cant we supply our weapons of the same class to those regions around the world where they will target sensitive facilities of the countries that are doing this to Russia? he said.
Though it seems the US has finally budged on letting Ukraine use its long-range missiles on specific targets in Russia, it remains to be seen whether the rest of Kyivs Western partners will follow suit.
Downing Street is yet to issue a response to Bidens decision, which has not been officially announced but has been widely reported in the US.
But Sir Keir Starmer said we need to double down on support for Ukraine and the issue was top of his agenda at this weeks G20 summit of world leaders in Brazil.
Unconfirmed reports from Le Figaro indicated both London and Paris were considering their position after months of having refused Zelenskys pleas to use the fearsome munitions on Russian targets.
The decision to green light the use of ATACMS on Russian targets comes as Ukrainian defences wilt under incessant pressure from Moscows troops.
As if to prove its enduring military capabilities, Ukraine shocked Moscow in August by piercing its border with tens of thousands of troops that Russia is still fighting to repel.
Zelensky said the operation made a mockery of Putins red lines and used the move as yet more evidence to lobby the US and European lawmakers to grant Kyiv permission to use advanced Western weapons inside Russia.
But after making rapid progress in the first two weeks of the incursion, Ukrainian advances in Kursk stalled and Kyivs troops have since been desperately trying to hold their position.
Meanwhile in Eastern Ukraine, Russias forces are steadily grinding towards the logistics hub of Pokrovsk having taken large swathes of territory in the Donetsk region in recent months.
Putins army took 185 square miles of Ukrainian territory in October, a record since the first weeks of the conflict in March 2022, according to an analysis of data provided by the real-time conflict tracker from the Institute for the Study of War.
Now, with Trump set to return to the White House in a matter of weeks, the intensity of the conflict is likely to increase.
Trump has famously said that the Russia-Ukraine war would never have started had he been president and claimed he could bring the conflict to an abrupt halt - without ever revealing his plans for doing so.
There are mounting concerns that Trump could push for a hasty ceasefire requiring Ukraine to cede significant portions of its territory - a prospect that leaves both sides fighting to capture as much land as possible so as to strengthen their position ahead of negotiations.
Bidens decision to grant Ukraine the use of ATACMS in Kursk could therefore be seen as an additional buttress that aims to help Kyivs troops maintain their foothold in Kursk to present it as a bargaining chip.
In this photo taken from a video released by Russian Defense Ministry press service on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, the Russian armys multiple rocket launcher Solntsepyok fires towards Ukrainian positions in the border area of Kursk region, Russia
Firefighters work at the site of residential area hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russias attack on Ukraine, in Lviv region, Ukraine November 17, 2024
Russian service members hoist a Russian flag on the top of a building in Selydove
Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024
Ukrainian servicemen of the 26th artillery brigade fire an AHS Krab self-propelled howitzer toward Russian positions near the front line in the Chasiv Yar area
Putin said on day one of Russias full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 that anyone who tried to hinder or threaten it would suffer consequences that you have never faced in your history.
Since then, he has issued a series of further statements that the West regards as nuclear threats and announced the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russias lower house of parliament and a close ally of President Putin, said Moscow would be forced to use more powerful and destructive weapons against Ukraine if Kyiv started firing long-range Western missiles at Russia.
Washington and other European states are becoming parties to the war in Ukraine, Volodin said on Telegram.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in September that Moscow suspects a US decision to let Kyiv fire such missiles into Russia has already been taken, and vowed that the Kremlin would take an appropriate response if the missile ban is lifted.
It was unsurprising therefore that news of the Biden administrations decision to approve ATACMS use in Kursk heralded a torrent of apocalyptic warnings from Russian lawmakers this morning.
This is a very big step towards the beginning of the Third World War, said Putin-loyalist Vladimir Dzhabarov, deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper house and a retired security service general.
He slammed the move from Biden - a departing old man who will no longer be responsible for anything in two months.
Hardline Liberal-Democatic party leader Leonid Slutsky said: Biden has apparently decided to end his presidential term and go down in history as Bloody Joe.
It will mean only one thing - direct US participation in the military conflict in Ukraine, which will inevitably entail the harshest response from Russia, based on the threats that will be created for our country.
Russian senator Andrey Klishas said: The West has decided on a level of escalation that could end with the remnants of Ukraine completely losing their statehood.
