A power vacuum that will be filled with more war with both sides trying to gain the advantage. With autumn turning into winter at full speed in kyiv, that is the description heard within the Ukrainian Government when referring to the current impassepending the arrival of Donald Trump to the White House on January 20.
“Trump has said that he wants to end the war in 24 hours, there is no one more interested in that idea than Ukraine,” says a senior Ukrainian government official. “The problem is that at the moment there are only conjectures, will it be the first peace plan? The second? The first variation? Number ten?”
Ukraine is in “a difficult, but not catastrophic, position,” says the same source. He has no choice but to keep fighting to, perhaps, show Trump that supporting kyiv is not a losing bet, he adds.
Last week, the last-minute change of opinion of the current president of the United States, Joe Biden, was key, with the White House announcing on Sunday, November 17, that the United States would allow the use of its ATACMS missile system, with a range of 306 kilometers, against targets inside Russia.
Ukraine had been asking for authorization for years, arguing that these missiles are essential to attack barracks, airfields and logistics centers in the rear of its enemy. “Finally, at the end of Biden’s term, the White House is more useful, but it cannot compensate for the delays of previous years,” says the senior official.
Although its number of casualties fluctuated around 1,350 per day in October (according to British estimates), Russia now has the military initiative in large areas of the Eastern Front, where it is swallowing up the city of Kurákhove little by little. “The front line is now less stable than at any time since the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion,” UK Defense Secretary John Healey warned on Thursday.
Despite this, the White House authorization includes a restriction: the missiles can only be used for the battle being fought in the oblast Kursk Russian. After seizing a chunk of territory there in August, Ukraine is trying to resist a Russian counterattack involving 50,000 troops, including 10,000 North Koreans from its recent ally in Pyongyang.
In any case, in Ukraine there was not much hesitation to use the ATACMS system. One day after the US authorization, The Ukrainian army fired about eight missiles at an ammunition depot Russian about 130 kilometers from the border, according to their reports.
Attention immediately focused on the United Kingdom, whose room for maneuver was limited by the reluctance of the United States. Would you now be willing to deliver more Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, with range and capabilities similar to the ATACMS systems? The United Kingdom will have to “double down,” was the only thing Keir Starmer, the prime minister, who was in Brazil from Sunday to Wednesday for the G20 summit, said vaguely in Rio de Janeiro.
Between some half-hearted hints and more direct comments from other allies, it became clear last Monday that the United Kingdom was finally willing to supply more Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine and thus end what had been a bone of contention with kyiv.
On Wednesday it emerged that Ukraine had fired a dozen of these missiles at a Russian command post separated from the border by more than 40 kilometers. But the United Kingdom did not want to confirm the change in position, possibly for fear of alienating Moscow. Until a Russian blogger specialized in military topics published images of missile fragments where it was possible to read the words Storm Shadow. “Look at social media,” a person from the UK Ministry of Defense finally said, acknowledging the strength of the evidence.
But two strategic missile attacks are not enough to change the course of the war. As Matthew Savill, director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank, says, “the military value of the two weapons has a limit and that is that there are only a defined number of ATACMS and Storm Shadow.”
According to Savill, the restriction imposed by the US could end up becoming an advantage, by concentrating Ukraine’s attention on a reduced part of the front. On other occasions, the results obtained by Ukraine with the launch of ATACMS and Storm Shadow against territories occupied by Russia have been spectacular, but without altering the balance on the territory in favor of Ukraine. Now, according to Savill, Ukraine will be able to focus on “keeping Kursk as a constant concern”, which could be a small asset in any peace negotiations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quick to promise an “adequate” response. On Wednesday there was a moment of nervousness in kyiv, with the United States unexpectedly closing the embassy after warning of a “possible relevant air attack.” When the attack came, it was a surprise: a single nuclear-capable missile with an estimated range of about 5,600 kilometers. According to Russia, a factory was shot at in Dnipro, about 800 kilometers away. A very short range for this type of weapon.
Such a missile is too expensive to justify its use at that distance, but there was also a political objective in its launch, as demonstrated by Vladimir Putin’s unplanned appearance on Russian television. “We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military installations of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our installations,” he said. The threat of war escalation was clearly directed at Trump. The war would only widen, Putin said, if the West continued to allow its missiles to reach Russia.
Beyond this missile diplomacy, things on the front line remain unchanged. According to Savill, this allows Russia to be in no hurry to reach peace talks, “because they can spend more lives and have the possibility of gaining another 20 or 30 kilometers.” What Putin is trying now is to convince Trump that significantly more aid to Ukraine would be too costly for the West. Few believe that the next US president will face him.
Translation of Francisco de Zárate
#missiles #change #war #Ukraine
