The Putin regime has responded predictably, and as it has before to every scaling up of US engagement in Ukraine, with dire warnings of the supposed effects of escalation and with threats to react “appropriately”. In the past, that has included nuclear sabre rattling, though, in practice, has been limited to more missile raids on civilian targets, like its huge weekend barrage.
So there was more of the same on Monday after President Biden announced an abrupt, long-awaited policy shift to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia with US-made 300-kilometre-range Army Tactical Missile System, or Atacms. There were reports of the first use of the missiles on Tuesday in a region of western Russia, more than 100 kilometres from the Ukraine border and north of the frontline in the neighbouring Kursk region.
Putin, however, got strange and inappropriate support this time in the form of a response on X from Donald Trump jnr, the president-elect’s son. “The Military Industrial Complex,” he wrote, “seems to want to make sure they get World War III going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.” Although Trump jnr has no official position or standing, it would be foolish to ignore the evidence, if any was needed, that the decision to further assist Ukraine is not one his father would have made, or will make.
Moscow’s fulminations against what it claims are the US’s further internationalisation of the conflict ring particularly hollow with its own deployment of 12,000 reinforcements on the battlefield from North Korea. It has already also been using missiles supplied by Pyongyang and Tehran.
Biden’s determination to preempt Trump’s inauguration will reassure Kyiv and its European allies who fear the president-elect’s intentions. Britain and France may now also follow suit in authorising the use of their long-range missiles and accepting a revised Biden logic that Putin’s escalation threats or bluffs can and should be called.
Had such aid been delivered earlier, the state of the war might well now be very different.