The Biden administration has repeatedly delayed providing Ukraine with advanced systems such as F16s and Patriot air defence systems, only to relent later under pressure.
LONDON: Coincidence, or exquisite timing? On Tuesday, exactly 1000 days since Vladimir Putin ordered the illegal invasion of a neighbouring country, President Joe Biden finally gave Ukraine permission to use US-supplied longer range missiles for deeper strikes inside Russia. Biden’s move came just weeks before Donald Trump takes office as the 47th President of the United States on 20 January next year, and is a significant escalation in the war.
Concerned about Russia’s response, the Biden administration has repeatedly delayed providing Ukraine with advanced systems such as F16s and Patriot air defence systems, only to relent later under pressure. Ukraine has long argued that not being allowed to use such weapons inside Russia was like being asked to fight with one hand tied behind its back. The decision on Tuesday to allow Kyiv to use Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMs) for strikes further into Russia, came as Putin began to employ North Korean troops along Ukraine’s border in the attempt to reclaim the more than 1000sq km of Russia’s Kursk region seized by Ukraine in August. ATACMs are surface-to-surface ballistic missiles capable of hitting targets of up to 186 miles, a range that makes them particularly important for Ukraine. In addition to holding Kursk, they will allow Kyiv to reduce Russian attacks on its cities and electrical infrastructure, which are causing extensive damage and blackouts as the country freezes. Only last week, Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack across Ukraine, the largest in recent months, which destroyed numerous civilian high-rise buildings, killing dozens of people as well as cutting power grids.
Last week, Britain also followed the US’s lead. Until now, the UK has permitted Ukraine to use British tanks, anti-tank missiles and other military equipment in Russia as part of its defence, but not long-range missiles. That all changed on Wednesday when, hours after Washington’s decision on ATACMs, Britain told Kyiv that Ukraine’s military could use British-made Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets inside Russia. These weapons, which have a range of 150 miles and carry bunker-busting bombs, have been used within Ukraine for more than a year, but this is the first time they have been used against targets in Russia and the Kremlin is not happy.
There is risible irony in President Putin’s warning about the use of these foreign-made missiles against Russia, as throughout the war Moscow has used an array of Iranian and North Korean missiles and drones against Ukraine from the safety of its own territory. This month China supplied Russia with lethal drones for the first time. Russia is even nowadays employing at least 10,000 North Korean troops to supplement their dwindling numbers in the war against Ukraine. But this point seems to have been lost or ignored in the angry statements coming out of the Kremlin. “It’s clear that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps to continue to add fuel to the fire and to further inflame tensions around this conflict ,” Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “This is reckless and dangerous, aimed at a qualitative change, a qualitative increase in the level of involvement of the United States”. Peskov reminded reporters that President Putin had expressed his position clearly in September when he warned that the move to let Kyiv use longer-range weapons against targets in Russia would mean NATO would be directly “at war” with Moscow.
In yet another move to help Kyiv’s battle against Moscow’s aggression, President Biden approved the supply of anti-personnel landmines to Ukraine last week. Washington has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines throughout the war, but the addition of anti-personnel mines is a new development. Their use is banned by more than 150 countries, but notably not the US, Russia or China. Russian forces have used at least 13 types of anti-personnel mines since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and this reciprocal arrangement for Kyiv will help stem the slow but steady advance of the Moscow’sground forces in the Donbas region, in which Russia is suffering more than 1,500 casualties every day.
The latest moves by the US and Britain have clearly rattled the Kremlin. Last week, an angry Putin loosened the conditions of use for Russia’s nuclear weapons, aimed at scaring western elites to show they are playing with fire. On Thursday, he said Russia has the right to use its nuclear weapons against military installations of those countries that use their weapons against Russian facilities. He backed up his threat by pointing to a new hypersonic medium-range missile which was fired at Dnipro in Ukraine earlier that day. Named Oreshnik, this newly developed missile travels at ten times the speed of sound, about 3km per second and, according to Vladimir Putin, cannot be intercepted by western defences.
All this raises two important questions. First, why did US President Biden and UK Prime Minister Starmer suddenly allow Ukraine the degree of freedom to use their country’s missiles; and second, why did the Kremlin remain unusually silent for several days after the attack on Russian military sites before announcing a new nuclear doctrine? The answers to both questions are connected by two words – Donald Trump.
Most experts believe that both sides are trying to maximise their positions in preparations for talks with President-elect Trump after he assumes office in less than two months. So far as Russia is concerned, the more their forces are successful in their battle in Ukraine’s Donbas region, the more the Kremlin will be able to dictate terms. From Kiev’s point of view, the arrival of long-range missiles and anti-personnel mines will strengthen its forces to the extent that they might be able to slow or even reverse Russian advances and gain some extra leverage in any peace talks that may lie ahead.
All wars finally end and Ukraine’s President Zelensky is now saying that 2025 will be the year of negotiations. Western policy makers, especially those in Washington, should begin to think about how this war will conclude in a way that preserves Ukraine’s vital interests. This means persuading Donald Trump to understand that in ending the war he would look strong if he made sure that Ukraine comes out of negotiations with its interests safeguarded. The result must be a deal with Ukraine, not against it and most certainly not over its head. The deal should also ensure that Kyiv is not required to cede sovereignty over territory that Russia will continue to hold in the case of a ceasefire, and it’s vital that the status of this territory is left open and not yielded to Russia as the prize of aggression. Finally, Trump should insist that Ukraine gets to decide its security policy in the period after a ceasefire, so that it could continue to work towards NATO membership. Such a deal would still be an unsatisfactory outcome for Zelensky, of course, but it would be a ceasefire that allows Ukraine to continue to draw closer to the West, which is the clear wish of the vast majority of its citizens.
During the election campaign, Trump boasted that he would stop the three-year war in one day, although he never explained how he would do this. This raises uncertainty about whether his administration would continue the US’s vital military support for Ukraine, which since February 2022 has amounted to more than $100 billion. If Trump stops this support and sells out Ukraine, he will look weak, for the simple reason he will have behaved like a weakling.
Giving Russia all it wants will make America look even feebler than after retreating from Afghanistan. The consequences will go far beyond Ukraine and would be dangerous for the whole of Europe, putting other former “Soviet Empire” countries at risk from Putin’s expansionist ambitions. The legal order will have been ignored, Putin will have triumphed and his friend Xi Jinping will rejoice—an outcome disastrous for world peace.
So, over to you, Donald. Be strong.
* John Dobson is a former British diplomat, who also worked in UK Prime Minister John Major’s office between 1995 and 1998. He is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Plymouth.