Putin's Bluffing 'Until He Isn't': Ex-UK Official
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West against allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia.
Kim Darroch, Britain’s former national security adviser, said in an interview published Saturday that the West should consider Russian Vladimir Putin’s threat of a major escalation before allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia.
“If they are confident that he’s bluffing, then fine. But he’s bluffing until he isn’t,” he told The Financial Times.
U.S. President Joe Biden and the collective West continue to gamble.
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This is a major shift from when Biden told reporters on 11 March 2022, just weeks after the Russian invasion, that providing “offensive” equipment to Ukraine was off-limits.
“Look, the idea… the idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews, just understand – and don’t kid yourself, no matter what you all say – that’s called WWIII,” he said at the time.
Since then, he crossed nearly every imaginary line that he set in his support for Ukraine’s war effort…so much so that he was mocked by the former Ukrainian defense head Oleksii Reznikov, who said shortly after the approval of U.S. tanks for Ukraine: “This concern about the next level of escalation, for me, is some kind of protocol. Ukraine as a country, and the armed forces of Ukraine, became [a] member of NATO. De facto, not de jure (by law). Because we have weaponry and the understanding of how to use it.”
On 25 January 2023, Biden announced that the U.S. would send Ukraine 31 M1 Abrams tanks. Biden’s move came after the UK announced that it provided Ukraine with its Challenger tanks and hours after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced that Berlin would provide Ukraine with 14 of its Leopard 2 tanks.
(It is worth noting that there are three versions of this M1A2 configuration, and the U.S. will not be providing Ukraine with its newest model that comes with secret armor that includes depleted uranium.)
Volodymyr Zelensky, who got elected as the actual president of Ukraine by promising peace with Russia, used the announcement at the time to push for more weapons from the West – namely long-range missiles.
He applauded the approval of Western tanks as a “fist of freedom,” that could help his forces break through Russian strongholds, but said, “We have to unlock the supply of long-range missiles to Ukraine; it is important for us to expand our cooperation in artillery. We have to achieve the supply of aircraft to Ukraine.”
On 22 September 2023, Biden told Zelensky that long-range Army Tactical Missile System, (ATACMS) will also be headed to Kyiv.
Ukraine’s argument was that Russia’s command posts and logistic storage were about 50 miles from the front, which is the maximum range of the HIMARS, which was already provided. The UK had already provided Ukraine with its Storm Shadow cruise missile with a range of nearly 200 miles.