US President Joe Biden’s decision to authorise Ukraine to use long-range ATACMS missiles to strike Russian territory leaves “three significant questions”, the British magazine The Economist has written.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier that if Ukraine uses long-range missiles to attack Russian territory, it would mean “direct participation of the USA and its satellites in hostilities against Russia” and “a radical change in the essence and nature of the conflict”.
The Economist notes that the first issue will be the scale of the US authorisation. According to the magazine, Kiev has so far been allowed “to use ATACMS only in the Kursk region.” It is noted that there is no special military sense in such strikes on the Russian region.
The second question is whether the UK and France will follow the US example and allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow and SCALP missiles in a similar way.
“The third and most important question is how Putin will decide to respond,” the piece points out.
According to the magazine, the authorisation of ATACMS strikes will slightly affect the position of Ukraine on the front, but may strengthen its position in the negotiations.
Earlier, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a possible US permission for Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles for strikes on Russian territory would be “a qualitatively new round of tension”. He noted that Moscow had paid attention to the mass media reports, where such permission was reported with reference to unofficial sources, and stressed that the Russian Federation’s position on this issue had been repeatedly voiced, including by the head of state Vladimir Putin.
