Ukraine Targets Sites in Russia as Reports Surface of US Policy Change
Some observers question the timing of the Biden administration’s apparent decision to allow Kyiv to strike targets inside Russia with long-range missiles.
A Ukrainian missile attack on western Russia appears to have confirmed reports of a U.S. decision to allow Kyiv to fire American long-range missiles at targets inside Russian territory.
On Nov. 19, Moscow reported that six ballistic missiles had been fired by Kyiv into Russia’s western Bryansk region.
Five were successfully downed by air defenses, the ministry said, adding that falling debris had set a military facility ablaze without causing deaths or injuries.
“According to confirmed data, U.S.-made ATACMS [Army Tactical Missile Systems] … have been used,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
According to experts, the apparent shift in U.S. policy could tilt the dynamic in Ukraine’s favor after months of Russian gains on the battlefield.
“The ability to use long-range weapons will make quite a big difference to Ukrainian capabilities,” Andrew Corbett, a United Kingdom-based defense analyst, told The Epoch Times.
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“Allowing Ukraine to strike at [logistics] hubs deep inside Russian areas will be a major factor in future developments,” said Corbett, a lecturer at the Defense Studies Department at King’s College London.
“Russia will have to pull its logistic hubs further back [away from the frontline] … or run the much higher risk of seeing its supply lines destroyed.”
Either way, Corbett said, Russia’s offensive operations will likely become “much more problematic” after the U.S. decision.
A U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) fires a missile into the East Sea during a South Korea-U.S. joint missile drill in South Korea, on July 29, 2017. South Korean Defense Ministry via Getty Images
‘Finite Risk’
The reported attack follows a flurry of media reports suggesting that Washington had lifted its longstanding ban on Ukraine’s use of U.S. long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.
Moscow, for its part, has repeatedly warned that such a move by the outgoing administration in Washington would be tantamount to direct involvement in the war.
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that if Ukraine targeted Russia with American missiles it would mean “NATO countries—the United States and European countries—are at war with Russia.”
Shortly before the ballistic missile attack, Putin signed a newly revised nuclear warfare doctrine, which reportedly calls for a nuclear response if Ukraine uses Western missiles—even conventional ones—against Russian territory.
According to a Kremlin spokesman, the apparent U.S. policy change will likely result in a “qualitatively new phase” of tension between the two nuclear powers.
