‘Completely Different Game’ if Ukraine Used Western Weapons in Strike on Russia’s Nuke Warning Radar: RITTER

Ritter noted that Putin would see an attack on Russia by Ukraine using French missiles, French intelligence, and French technology as an attack by Paris itself

Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, told Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast on Thursday that the West is playing with fire after French President Emmanuel Macron said Kyiv should use its long-range SCALP missiles to hit targets inside Russia.

Ritter mentioned Ukraine’s drone strike on a Russian nuclear early warning radar system, including one in the Krasnodar region last week that suffered damage.

The West is beginning to approve limited strikes by Kyiv into Russia with weapons that have been provided – which was once seen as a red line. A U.S. official told The Washington Post that “the United States is concerned about Ukraine’s recent strikes against Russian ballistic missile early-warning sites.”

Ritter said the offensive on these sites was more than just a run-of-the-mill drone attack.

“It was Ukrainian drowned married to American and NATO intelligence,” he said.

He said if these two sites were attacked by Ukrainians using the French long-range missile or the British Storm Shadow, “we’d be in a completely different game” with Russia’s response.

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“And this is where Macron really needs to start putting on his thinking cap. You give the Ukrainians SCALP missiles, but he knows that the final technical details of the targeting are done by French technicians on the ground using intelligence from French satellites,” he said.

He pointed to a leaked call earlier in the year when German Chancellor Olaf Scholz let the cat out of the bag Monday and said NATO countries are not only providing weapons to the Ukrainians but are helping Kyiv’s forces fire these weapons at Russian targets.

Scholz was addressing reporters about his reluctance to provide Ukraine with his country’s feared Taurus missiles, which have a longer range than the missiles already provided by Britain and France. He also said the missiles would require German troops on the ground in Ukraine.

The Associated Press quoted him saying, “What is being done in the way of target control and accompanying target control on the part of the British and the French can’t be done in Germany. Everyone who has dealt with this system knows that.”

François Heisbourg, a senior adviser with the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, posted on X: “Looks like Scholz cares as little (or even less) for his U.K. allies as he does for the French. Silver lining nonetheless: he's unwittingly helping to break the taboo on the presence of NATO-member forces in Ukraine.”

Ritter noted that Putin would see an attack on Russia by Ukraine using French missiles, French intelligence, and French technology as an attack by Paris itself, even if a Ukrainian pulled the trigger.

“That’s what Macron doesn't understand. French satellite will go goodbye; ground control station will go goodbye,” he said. “And any target outside of Ukraine that was involved in this will go goodbye.”

He continued, “France will scream bloody murder they won't acknowledge that this was a Russian retaliatory strike they will claim that Russia has attacked It and seek Article Five protection from NATO and the moment NATO votes for Article 5, Russia will nuke everybody.