If there is one thing that the war in Ukraine has made clear, it is that the West’s fear of crossing the limits in its support for kyiv is lost as time passes. And that the lines marked by Moscow are less red than they seem. Or at least that is what the sending of weapons, battle tanks and airplanes by the allies has demonstrated. A military aid that could be joined in the coming days by the use by the Ukrainian Army of American long-range missiles on the territory of the Russian Federation; according to several American media reports this Sunday. A change in position of the outgoing Executive of Joe Biden that arrives two months before Donald Trump’s inauguration and when Russian attacks on Ukraine have intensified and North Korean troops are already supporting the Kremlin to recover the Kursk territory.
“The media talks a lot about giving us permission for these actions, but the attacks are not carried out with words. These things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves. I’m sure they will“said the Ukrainian president himself, Volodymyr Zelensky, about the information published by Washington Post either The New York Times. Specifically, kyiv will be able to use the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) against targets in Russian territory, which was until now prohibited for fear of escalation.
The Kremlin has warned that this inevitably implies an increase in tensions and would represent another step in the “direct involvement” of the US, which it has accused of adding “fuel to the fire.” If this permission is finally confirmed, it would be “a qualitatively new situation” in the current conflict, the main Kremlin spokesman, Dimitri Peskov, has told the media, recalling that Putin already warned that this would be a direct involvement of NATO, since only the countries of the Alliance can manage the ATACMS.
“It is still not known what it will translate into, but what is clear is that what until now was a taboo has been broken,” he tells 20 minutes Salvador Sánchez Tapia, brigadier general of the Army and senior researcher at the Center for Global Affairs & Strategic Studies, who recognizes that although Trump’s arrival has something to do with the decision, he also seeks to break the situation in which Ukraine is now. , that “He is losing tactically and needs a boost, at least on a moral level”.
This news comes after a week of massive attacks on electrical infrastructure Ukrainian, which this weekend temporarily stopped working in part of the country. Furthermore, on Sunday night and Monday morning there were two major attacks with fatalities. In the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumi, at least 11 people have died, including six children, and another 90 have been injured. Furthermore, in the port town of Odessa, a Russian attack has caused the death of eight civilians and around 40 wounded.
What implication will it have in the war?
The use of ATACMS is not new in this war. The Ukrainian Army He already used them, but in his territory. These high-precision surface-to-surface missiles are manufactured by the American company Lockheed Martin and can be launched from an M270 multiple launch platform or from the HIMARS mobile system with a range of about 300 kilometers.
Although Zelensky has been requesting this authorization for months, it was in November when he put on the table the possibility of attacking North Korean soldiers who are in Russia to fight on the side of Kremlin troops with ATACMS. “Biden’s decision It has to be related to the deployment of North Korean troops in the Russian region of Kursk controlled by kyiv,” Álvaro de Argüelles, an analyst at The world order. Although these missiles could bomb targets deep within Russia, international media already suggest that the authorization of this weapon could be limited only to this region and not to the entire territory.
Regarding how this will change the development of the war, the experts consulted agree that it will not be decisive. “It will be able to harm Russia and at a given moment that can be used as an asset, but for it to have a lethal effect on Russia they would have to have a large number of missiles,” explains the brigadier general. For his part, De Argüelles points out that the experience of the war in these years shows that none of the technological milestones and red lines imposed by Russia that have been crossed have represented a substantial change. “Of course they have influenced, but have not definitively decided the outcome of the conflict. “Ukraine’s main problem has to do with the lack of ammunition and fighters,” he says.
The arrival of Trump and his promises to end the war
Another of Biden’s objectives with this could be to strengthen Ukraine’s position with a view to a possible negotiation with Moscow once Trump comes to power. Ukrainians’ partial control of the Kursk region It was an important negotiating asset. that kyiv had in hypothetical peace negotiations, and what Putin would be looking for with North Korean support is precisely to snatch that ace from them before the president-elect reaches the White House.
That is why the Ukrainian Army could use that temporary window to retain the territory it has, since in recent weeks it had lost a good part of the occupied land. And that, with the arrival of North Korean troops, it could continue losing at a greater rate. “If Ukraine manages to keep part of Kursk without a doubt your negotiating power increases and that territory becomes an asset that can be exchanged,” says De Arguelles.
Despite this, Moscow can also use this decision to its advantage and maximize the pressure that it must now negotiate with its conditions. At a time when it has gained ground in Donbas and feels strong at a military level. “Putin is going to use this to stoke fear of a Third World War. Something he has done before, but which now makes even more sense as the announcement comes at a time when there is open talk of a negotiated solution in the conflict,” says the analyst.
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