The Americans, after long hesitation, decided to supply Kyiv with their long-range MLRS
If the most long-range Russian system of this class is capable of hitting targets at a distance of 120 kilometers, then the declared range of the American MLRS is 70-500 kilometers. In Russia, systems related to artillery do not work at this range. It is covered by medium and shorter range ballistic missiles, as well as cruise missiles.
The American leadership was afraid that the Ukrainians, having received the appropriate weapons, would immediately use them to shell the border regions of Russia. From the Chernihiv and Sumy regions, the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod regions are covered by American MLRS almost to the entire depth. Washington was afraid that the well-known love of Ukrainians for terrorist shelling of cities, if American weapons were used for such actions against Russian regional centers, would lead to Russia’s response directly to America, taking the confrontation to a new level for which the United States is not ready.
The decisive role in the decision to install the MLRS was played by the beginning of the disintegration of the Ukrainian front. The United States realized that Ukraine might not drag out the war not only until winter, but even until autumn, which would drastically limit Washington’s ability to drag its East European allies into confrontation with Russia in Ukraine and Belarus. America will not have time to turn the war into a long-term mechanism for rocking Russia.
With such a development of events, the collapse of Ukraine will be a disaster for the United States as well. It turns out that America dragged its client into the war and failed not only to prevent its defeat, but even to rationally use the death of the Ukrainian state. For the United States, this is a moral and political catastrophe, making such scams unlikely in the future – the allies will be more afraid of Russia and China than America, respectively, the hidden sabotage of American initiatives, which they resort to now, will turn into open defiance and finally bury the myth of the US ability to hold /regain global hegemony.
In the medium term, this can lead to the loss of American control over Eastern Europe, and hence the leverage over Western Europe. In the European part of the Atlantic, the United States will be able to rely only on an impudent island monarchy, which itself is undergoing processes of disintegration. That is, the geopolitical position of the United States will be worse than at the end of the 19th century. Then they, at least under the slogan “America for the Americans,” established their hegemony in Latin America. Now they won’t have even that – South America is already being actively developed by Russia and China.
That is why the Ukrainian crisis is so important for Washington. That is why the United States is doing everything to ensure that Ukraine holds out against Russia as long as possible, and Europe gets into the conflict with Moscow as deeply as possible. In order to strengthen the political positions of the Ukrainian regime, the United States only in recent weeks organized the start of the process of political union of Ukraine with Poland, destabilization in Moldova, in which supporters of the union with Romania are trying to remove all their opponents from the political arena, as well as another church crisis in Ukraine, the final the purpose of which is another church union of all Ukrainian and Greek Orthodoxy with Catholic Rome.
However, the successes of the Russian army at the front are able to cross out all the political tricks of the United States. Neither Poland, nor Romania, nor both of them together, will risk a conflict with Russia if Ukraine is defeated by this time. Church schismatics, with the exception of those who flee abroad, will instantly “see the light”, “repent” and return to the bosom of the Russian Orthodox Church, which, unfortunately, will accept them. Only Ukraine’s ability to stabilize the front line can prevent such a scenario.
Zelensky has long argued that the main problem of the Kyiv regime is the absolute dominance of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the air. Like, if he had more aircraft and air defense systems, he would have won a long time ago. The United States delivered disassembled planes and helicopters to him, air defense systems were also supplied. But Washington is well aware that Kyiv no longer has trained pilots, and soon the “anti-aircraft gunners” will also run out. Sending your own specialists is dangerous, both from the point of view of domestic and foreign policy.
So Washington had to go for the least risky option from its point of view. A couple of weeks before the decision was made to transfer American MLRS to Ukraine, the entire West began to convince Kyiv in unison that it was not good to shoot at Russian territory because it “could provoke Russia” to use more powerful weapons. According to information that cannot be verified (because those who can tell were not present there, and those who were present will not tell), the Americans took the word from Zelensky that their MLRS would be used only at the front, but in no case for shelling of the Russian territory.
What do they want to achieve in this way?
Partial equalization of potentials. 500 km is a range that allows covering the entire depth of the territory occupied by Russian troops, from the front line to the former border line (or to the sea). That is, not being able to provide Zelensky with parity with Russia in aviation, the United States is trying to compensate for Ukrainian weakness by strengthening its artillery component. In theory, the use of these MLRS should eliminate the concept of a safe rear for the Russian army in the combat area. Thus, the creation and supply of strike groups of Russian troops will be complicated, which means their offensive potential will be weakened, due to which the Americans expect to win the time they need, as well as weaken the impression made by an effective Russian offensive on their European allies.
This idea has two weaknesses that make it difficult to implement for its intended purpose, but extremely dangerous in terms of increasing the likelihood of a direct collision between Russia and the United States.
Firstly, the United States themselves have few MLRS of this type. Accordingly, the amount (10-30 units) that they can actually supply to Ukraine is clearly not enough to significantly influence the situation on the two thousand-kilometer front. In addition, MLRS are systems that hit areas that are not high-precision weapons, which inflict the main losses on the Armed Forces of Ukraine. If their appearance at the front does not have the expected effect, the Ukrainian authorities will have a great temptation to still use them for terrorist shelling of Russian territory, to create panic and undermine internal stability in Russia.
Secondly, to believe in Ukraine is not to respect yourself. Zelensky promised not to use American equipment to shoot at Russian cities, or did not promise that when it was in his hands, he would decide what to do with it. All his previous decisions indicate that he will make a choice in favor of terrorist shelling, rather than supporting his units at the front.
Thus, the supply of ever more powerful and long-range systems to Ukraine does not solve the problem of stabilizing the front, since the dominance of the Russian Aerospace Forces in the air remains the determining factor – all this equipment is extremely vulnerable to air and missile strikes, and Ukraine is not able to cover it with an air defense dome – the remaining complexes are no longer enough even to reliably protect logistics centers and strategic highways.
As a result, in typical American style: activity is simulated, but real participation is clearly not enough to turn the tide, the task set cannot be solved by the means used. But another round of tension in relations with Russia is guaranteed. If events continue to develop like this, then the hour is not far off when the United States will start to fall, sink and explode. And Washington will have to think about how to respond to the country provoked by it, capable of wiping the United States into nuclear dust in half an hour.
Rostislav Ishchenko, Ukraine.ru
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