The Administration Biden has made ambiguity its preferred policy for almost four years. It was seen in Afghanistan, when the Taliban were allowed to enter early and Western delegations had to be evacuated by helicopter for fear of worse harm; it is seen in Gaza, where criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu They alternate with declarations of military adherence to Israel while peace meeting after peace meeting is convened without any success… and we can also see it in Ukraine, where Fear of upsetting Russia and the desire to help the Zelensky regime have been clashing for two and a half years.
Despite public statements of support for kyiv, the truth is that the United States has always been reluctant to cross any red lines it has set itself. Poutine on the way. The threat of using tactical nuclear weapons in the spring of 2022, when the conflict has just begun, has conditioned all subsequent processes. In Washington, some believe that these threats are serious and that Russia can move from words to actions (the wing led by Jake SullivanNational Security Advisor) and who believes that these are just bluffs that will in no way lead to the apocalypse (Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in this group).
These two sensitivities clash every time Volodymyr Zelensky asks for new help. This is what happened with the HIMARS, which took months to arrive in Ukraine and represented a radical change in the balance of power. This is what happened with the ATACMS, which arrived only in March of this year due to the reluctance of the Ministry of Defense. This even happened with the Patriot air defense systems, which also did not arrive on time, or with the F16, whose sale to Ukraine was authorized by Washington only in June 2023 … and it still took more than a year until we saw the fighters flying over the Donbass.
Each of these measures has been accompanied by the current nuclear threat from Russia. On each occasion, The military expedition was completed without anything happening. Apparently, the most recent debate is about the sale of high-tech JASSM missiles with a range of more than 300 kilometers. According to American media reports, the White House is close to reaching an agreement with kyiv for the immediate delivery of this weapon. The sad thing is that in practice they will be of practically no use.
An unequal war
Because the truth is that as long as Washington maintains the ban on using its weapons on Russian territory, Ukraine will be very limited in the use of these long-range missiles. The ideal would be to be able to launch them against refineries, power plants and weapons factories in Russia. In other words, this is the same thing that Ukraine itself suffers over and over again, since Moscow clearly does not understand the limits.
If Ukraine could attack these centers of Russian military activity, always within the framework of a just war and without harming civilians, not only would it reduce the number of troops and weapons that then arrive on the Donbass front… but it would force Russia to change your supply lines with all that that implies. Gerasimov would have to move the rear of his army hundreds of kilometers back. They could not be in Kursk, in Bryansk, in Rostov, in Belgorod… but beyond the distance covered by American missiles. This would cause very significant delays on the front line and would seriously harm any offensive attempt.
In fact, the only good thing that can be said about the acquisition of these long-range missiles is precisely that they allow Ukraine to place its equipment far from the front line. It can attack Donetsk or Lugansk from, for example, Dnipropetrovsk, which was unthinkable at the beginning of the war. The problem, in turn, is that Dnipropetrovsk is also within range of Russian missiles, so the imbalance would remain palpable.
Another option is to use these missiles to attack Crimea, which Ukraine has been doing for months. Crimea has a special status, as the international community does not recognize the Russian annexation of 2015 and continues to consider it occupied Ukrainian territory. Attacks on Crimea are economically useful, as they hit Russia’s favorite holiday destination and thus destroy the tourism industry; They are useful for controlling the Black Sea (the attacks on Sevastopol forced the Russian fleet to retreat to Novorossiysk and forget its illusions of a blockade in the fall of 2022) and are useful for slowing down supply routes from the peninsula south of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
New nuclear threat
Now, this is not enough to win the war… that is why Kiev officers and top political leaders continue to protest in a low voice against Washington’s contradictions. In fact, the raid on Kursk was not even previously consulted with the White House: Zelensky and General Syrskyi knew they would be told not to dare and they would leak the news so that the Russians would find out one way or another.
In Ukraine, it is believed that there is no political will to stop the Russian invasion. Yes, to exhaust its army, of course, and to show some strength in the face of unilateral decisions, but without putting global stability at excessive risk. It is no coincidence that these days, when the debate on the use of weapons on Russian territory is once again relevant, the Kremlin is accelerating the revision of its nuclear doctrine. As if that matters. It is as if Russia can decide not only when to use its atomic weapons, but also what the consequences will be, which we all already know.
However, the Kremlin knows that it works and that something inside Joe Biden will shake when the current report arrives. And then the doubts, ambiguities and inconsistencies will return. Arming Ukraine so that it does not use weapons as it should, a curious contradiction. For now, what we see every day is what exists: Ukrainian cities devastated by missiles launched from any Russian enclave while life in Moscow continues virtually the same. As if it was not Putin himself who had started all this.
