Russian officials said Tuesday that Ukraine targeted Crimea with US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS), long-range missiles that the US secretly provided to Ukraine in March.
The ATACMS the US shipped to Ukraine have a range of about 190 miles, significantly longer than anything the US has previously provided. The US sent an older version of the ATACMS last fall that can hit targets up to 100 miles away and is packed with cluster bombs, which are notorious for killing and maiming civilians.
The governor of Crimea said that the ATACMS were shot down by Russian air defenses in the attack on Tuesday. The Russian Defense Ministry said that it shot down a total of six ATACMS but did not specify where.
US-supported attacks on Crimea always risk a major escalation as the peninsula is considered a red line for Russian President Vladimir Putin, something acknowledged by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken earlier in the war. A US official told Reuters that Ukraine launched its first attack on Crimea using ATACMS on April 17.
Ukraine has been asking for ATACMS throughout the war, but the Pentagon previously denied the request because it said there wasn’t enough to spare. The US also initially denied the request due to concerns about escalation.
But as the war has dragged on, the US and its NATO allies have been less and less concerned about escalation. The reasoning appears to be based solely on the fact that up to this point, Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory haven’t provoked Russian retaliation against NATO.
If at first poking a bear doesn’t elicit a problematic response, clearly it’s time to poke the bear harder…?
Yes Russia shot down 6 ATACMS. Embarrassment for Joey Biden.
Americans are testing Russian antimissile systems. Russians are adapting and improving their antimissile systems to American missiles. One may say, it is mutually profitable.
With tweaking of Russian EW systems the accuracy has dropped from 70% to 7%. Delicious!
In the last two years Russian military technologies improved drastically. The same one may say about Russian economy and political stability.
Go Russia!
To win a war, Dave, you have to escalate. De-escalation is for losers.
True definition of insanity.
USA wants a war with Russia and China at the same time, in fact working hard to incite an attack from them against NATO and or the USA. How can this be, sounds very stupid on the part of the USA,,COULD it be that the USA has succeeded in back engineering crashed or shot down UFO’s and weaponized them and wants to put them into full use before China and Russia also gains that information to check the USA??
USA doesn’t exist. America is a confused, diverse, population baffled and ruled by conflicting big brother propaganda. The only thing 90% of people in various delusional groups agree on is that they are against war in Ukraine, Israel, and especially with China and Russia. The non-Hebrew zionists with levers of power will burn it all down before being held accountable.
The reasoning appears to be based solely on the fact that up to this point, Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory haven’t provoked Russian retaliation against NATO.
Not overly concerned with retaliation against Ukraine. Fodder is fodder after all.
Reasoning? Thanks for the chuckle.
You are overlooking the fact that despite being over matched by Russia in every way, the Ukrainian army has not disintegrated. The Ukrainians have proven that they are obviously highly motivated to fight for their independence and territorial integrity. The Russians lost the war two years ago. It doesn’t matter if the Ukrainian army is destroyed. The Ukrainians will fight on. Putin started a forever war that Russia can’t win. The only possible end to this war is Russian withdrawal from Ukraine, reconstruction and negotiations leading to return of the refugees and an internationally supervised plebiscite in Crimea.
I didn’t overlook anything. I commented on the US role in this. Do you need quotes? You know like “money well spent” and “a good investment”? Or “weaken Russia”?
What do you think the Ukrainians are fighting for? They are very highly motivated.
Again, I was talking about the US role. Whether Ukrainians think of themselves as fodder doesn’t have anything to do with whether the US is using them as such.
Sure the US is using the Ukrainians as fodder. But the Ukrainians are using the US aid to support their fight against Russian imperialism. That’s why people like Noam Chomsky, the late Dan Ellsberg and me support the Ukrainian right to fight for self determination. And that is why Putin’s invasion has been a catastrophic failure for Russia and a tragedy for Ukraine. The Ukrainians have proven that they will not quit until the Russians leave. Putin was provoked into starting a forever war that Russia can’t win.
It’s like you’re trying to start an argument with me. Not interested.
Not trying to start a fight. Just observing that the only road to peace is a complete Russian withdrawal from Ukraine except for Crimea, and that is negotiable.
Along with recognizing Russia’s security concerns. And that wasn’t even considered negotiable.
“… Ukrainians will fight on.”
With what, man ? Harsh language ?
Oh, no – more likely, with NATO personnel when Kiev gets close enough to being overrun and Zelenskiyy & frauline off themselves in a bunker.
This is an asymmetric war of national resistance that is determined by hearts and minds, not force of arms or dollars and cents. The Ukrainians have shown that they will continue to resist the Russian invasion even if their army is defeated and they have to fight a guerrilla war until Russia decides to leave. The Irish, the Algerians, the Taliban and Hamas have fought successful guerrilla wars without massive material support from foreign sponsors. Russia is trapped in a negative feedback loop in a forever war where every Russian military victory makes the Ukrainian resistance stronger.
When the Ukrainian army finally collapses, and so does the State, there won’t be Russian soldiers against which to act out the 1984 documentary film “Red Dawn”; nor necessarily anyone combat-capable left to be Wolverines.
Most likely the Russian Federation will withdraw forces to the ethnic-Russian provinces of east Ukraine for whom they had Responsibility 2 Protect, and leave shattered western Ukraine (the forthcoming European Union Welfare State of Aryan West Ukraine) to be “bought” by the EU/NATO geniuses who broke it.
Before moving on, Joe Biden is doing his utmost to provoke a nuclear world war.
He does not seem to care personally if this results in millions of people getting killed.
We live in dangerous times with such clueless and immoral leaders.
As British historian Arnold Toynbee has found out in studying the collapse of nations, “Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder“.
Joe has already moved on. This is just some crap he left behind.
In what scenario do you see the Russians using nukes and how would that make things better for them in any way whatsoever?
According to Russian doctrine, the nukes should be used when there is a danger to Russian statehood. For example: if Russia fails to defend Crimea with conventional weapons, it would be legal, according to Russian law, to use nukes.
Who/where would they use nukes against if they lost Crimea?
And how would that improve things for Russia – i.e. how would it help keeping Russian statehood?
As I understand, they will use nukes for avoiding the loss of Crimea or any other part of Russian territory if they decide they can’t defend it by conventional weapons.
So in the Kherson oblast or in Crimea itself??
Maybe rather in a major logistic center of their enemy. Most weapons, as we know, arrive to Ukraine through Poland.
So Lviv ?
I ask because while this makes some sort of sense – I have a really hard time seeing the Russians losing control over Crimea.
Deciding to leave like they did outside Kyiv – perhaps but being defeated defensive line by defensive line – not so much.
Using nukes on Lviv while as I said may make some sense – but would land Russia in a world of trouble with e.g. China (they have issued guarantees to Ukraine on nukes) and India.
Said in other words using nukes will in Lviv kill a lot of civilians, but not really stop deliveries .
Delay them by 14 days sure maybe a bit longer if rail network is actually destroyed.
But the cost in long term isolation even from ‘friends’…
Of course not Lviv. It would be rather Rzeszow.
So in Poland!
Interesting – that would be very likely to trigger a nuclear response – and we both know where that would very likely lead.
So you are as I see it basically arguing that Putin would rather have the Russia state disintegrate completely (together with much of NATO) than risk losing Crimea.
Seems like a rather self-defeating way to avoid a potential threat to the Russian statehood.
I don’t think it would trigger a nuclear response.
Why not, the only way NATO keeps any kind of credibility is by its response to any actual attack. Or to put it a different way – if NATO does not respond to a nuclear attack it looses all credibility – as it stands NATO is challenged on the notion of how they would respond to e.g. a conventional attack on Spitsbergen or the Suvalki gap.
Not responding to an actual nuclear attack on a full NATO member would cause the disintegration of the organization immediately.
Neither US, nor UK, nor France will go on suicidal mission for NATO’s credibility. Trump, for example, told he wouldn’t mind to get out of NATO.
Neither France nor UK would like NATO to dissolve – and if they did not retaliate then that would happen.
Given that scenario they are likely to act as I suggested – if they do not they very soon loose their ability to project any power.
They are as it stands very much threatened in that way even without the Ukrainian war.
Trump may very well be happy to leave NATO – but then he is very unlikely to win in November – much more so than he was in 2016.
All those three countries consider Poland as just an other pawn in their game against Russia. Poland is no more valuable for them than Ukraine.
No they consider Poland as a member of NATO and if they do not defend it then NATO will dissolve as individual members seeks other ways to guarantee their populations.
So although Poland is only much more valuable at the very least to France it is fundamental to the security of their position in Europe.
A nuclear war with Russia, which leaves no chance for France, is much worse than the end of NATO. Even Macron understands that.
It is also much worse for Putin which is why he would not do it. Simply put Russia losing Crimea may be lethal to Putin but not a threat to Russian statehood.
The dissolution of NATO would end the ability of France and UK to keep their remaining colonies (overseas territories).
It would cut their ability to ‘influence’ African nations and completely end their ability to influence events even further away from Europe.
Hence what you propose is that Russia would chance nuclear exchange for a non lethal threat while UK, France and the US would not exercise tit for tat to keep their positions.
It just does not compute – not unless they can get every other nation to apply sanctions to Russia – obviating the need to punish them by simply beating them by strangling then through no trade.
Russia and China are pushing western powers out of Africa quite successfully anyway. France is already kicked out of some African countries. The point is: Russia and China offer to Africans a mutually profitable partnership while West Europeans and US only exploited African resources and generated military conflicts inside Africa.
Which is exactly why Macron is now so eager to help Ukraine, and likely why the UK was so from the outset.
We’ll see – my point was that if the French and the English does not defend NATO then they will weaken their position dramatically – i.e. a Russian nuke in Poland is their last chance to resist a development that leaves them increasingly powerless.
They are increasingly powerless anyway. It happens mostly because of incompetent leadership.
They are, but importantly as they see it so is Russia and to a lesser degree China.
I hope you realize that a first use of nukes is insane. No nation in the world, including China, recognizes Putin’s annexation of Crimea. And China would never condone a first use of nukes by anyone, including Russia.
It depends on circumstances.
If the use of nukes is so insane, why Truman used it?
Like I said, Truman’s use of nukes was insane. Japan was already defeated. The US could have invited international observers to White Sands and demonstrated the nuke. Would have achieved the same strategic purpose.
As I said above, the strategic purpose of nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was scaring Stalin. It didn’t worked that way but, at least, it was logical to try it.
The use of nukes is not insane as such, but it destroys the nuclear taboo – that did not exist in 1945 hence the usage was done to scare the Russians as much as to get the Japanese to surrender.
It can be argued that the Japanese surrendered not so much because of the nukes as because of the Russian advance in Korea and the down the Japanese islands From Sakhalin.
Nukes were not so known back then so unless you had actually visited Hiroshima you would not know.
Moreover people actually worked in Hiroshima only days after the attack with no immediate health effects – these were only observed much later.
I do agree that the goal of nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to scare Stalin.
I don’t think we should worry too much about use of nukes in the current conflict. Russia is strong enough to do it without nukes. On the other hand, American leadership doesn’t want to be involved too much in the war in Ukraine exactly because they understand that it can end up with Russia using minor nukes against Poland and it will mean the end of NATO which otherwise is a very lucrative thing for American MIC.
Well at least you se ethe point that NATO will cease to be if it does not live up to its article 5 ‘obligations’.
And that it is only through the NATO members that the US has been able to significantly lower the costs of its military equipment – the price per unit being much lower when you can sell as many as they can in NATO.
This is one more reason that they will defend NATO or as I point out lose much more of their ability to project power beyond their borders.
Original purpose of NATO was to keep Americans in, Russians out and Germans down. Also it was a good business project for American MIC. No one actually threatened Europe, particular after the collapse of USSR. After the collapse of USSR, they used NATO for controlling East Europe and for destabilization of Russia.
So far we agree
East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia would clearly disagree
Well while we may agree very many of the East European countries did and do not – they saw Russia as a temporary caged enemy not as a no longer a threat.
No these countries strongarmed the US to allow them to join NATO when the US was actually not really prepared.
Could have been a purpose – if so not very eagerly pursued.
“not very eagerly pursued” – in 2008 they decided to drag into NATO Ukraine and Georgia. Then they had a large US- Georgia military training by the end of which Georgia attacked Russian peacekeepers killing some of them and started a war against South Ossetia. At the time it was quite a challenge for Russian leadership. Medvedev was president and Putin was in China for participation in the opening of Olympic Games.
Exactly had it been eagerly pursued Ukraine and Georgia would have been accepted in – they were not because Europe is not just US puppets.
There were also some other reasons. Most of Ukrainians didn’t wanted NATO. In next elections 2010 they voted for Yanukovich who had no intention at all to drag Ukraine into NATO.
Yes but many people here seem to think that nations are pressured to join – happy to see that you are aware that this is not so.
Of course they are pressured to join NATO. They offer them the membership in EU, and as everything is controlled by Americans, no one was allowed to join EU without joining NATO.
Putin seems fine with their joining the EU.
Putin proposed an EU-Ukraine-Russia agreement. As Putin explained to Yanukovich, Russia can’t keep open border for Ukrainian goods if Ukraine join EU because in such case EU goods would move to Russia unrestricted through Ukrainian border while Russian goods can’t move unrestricted to EU. EU refused this proposition because the goal of The West was to destabilize Russia. Yanukovich, after considering all pro and contra, decided to postpone the agreement with EU. It happened in autumn 2013. In February 2024 Yanukovich lost his power as result of the far-right coup in which NATO countries actively participated.
In February 2014 of course, not 2024.
Interestingly, China promised a nuclear defence, to Ukraine, but in 2013. So, I’m not sure it still applies.
Russia could still trade behind tariffs, I suppose. There would just be restrictions if Ukraine joined the EU, like trade with Estonia.
Simply not true their governments (elected again and again) had official programs for trying to join NATO – if that was not the preference of the majority of the populations they could have voted for the many parties (several in most countries) who did not want to join.
https://gazeta.sgh.waw.pl/index.php/en/node/1127
To frighten the Soviets.
China has also twice, publicly put Ukraine under its nuclear defense umbrella, obligating itself to retaliate in kind against anyone who uses nukes on Ukraine.
Putin has presumably noticed that that guarantee has never been rescinded, even if Xi didn’t quietly remind him of it.
A guarantee in 1994 and again in 2013:
In a unilateral governmental statement in 1994, China provided Ukraine with nuclear security guarantee, where China states its inclination to peaceful settlement of differences and disputes by way of fair consultations.[11] In December 2013, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping signed a bilateral treaty and published a joint statement, where China reaffirmed that it will provide Ukraine with nuclear security guarantees upon nuclear invasion or threats of invasion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China–Ukraine_relations#:~:text=In%20a%20unilateral%20governmental%20statement,by%20way%20of%20fair%20consultations.
I don’t think China will go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
You’re right — China won’t go to war with Russia over Ukraine.
Because Putin is smart enough not to require China to go to war with Ukraine.
The Chinese know that Russia and China have a common enemy – the US. Together China and Russia can thwart US ambitions to global hegemony. Alone, neither has much of a chance. So they will cooperate because it is in their interest to do so. This common interest outweighs any Chinese interest in Ukraine, especially post-Maidan Ukraine.
I am sure Putin has also noticed that China has never recognized the annexation of Crimea and that support for territorial integrity is the first point of the Chinese peace proposal and one of the linchpins of Chinese foreign policy. Russia is a very valuable ally to China. But from China’s standpoint getting too close to Russia on Ukraine is bad optics and bad business. It is no accident that Russia has to go to North Korea and Iran for ammunition and drones.
I guess they’d try to destroy the US and NATO.
For as much casus belli as the Russian Federation has against NATO right now, I still think Putin et. al. will give the Nosy American Treaty Opportunists yet more rope to hang themselves with just to completely cement the RF’s justification for striking big and hard.
Sure – why do you think they have waited/wasted all this time wasting so many lives if that was the way they prefer to roll rather than losing Crimea?
One would expect, M64, that the Russian Federation, in a war with Ukraine (and just Ukraine of course, amirite ?), the RF miiiight go ahead & target, y’know, their enemy’s capital city ? Head of the snake, command & control, you know, Warfare 098 ?
And hmmmmmmm…how WOULD flattening your enemy’s capital city & demonstrating you’re not effing around and/or bluffing – jeez M64, how could that POSSIBLY improve a war the Russian Federation is fighting?
The Chinese have guaranteed the Ukrainians against nukes – the Russians can only nuke Kyiv if they want to lose all its remaining ‘friends’ – Russia can only nuke a NATO capital if they prefer suicide over the possible loss of Crimea.
I dunno. I question how much these people even care about the conflict. I sometimes think the elites are working together against the rest of us. Like in 1984, the purpose of the war is the war itself.
I’m not claiming certainty; it just doesn’t always seem believable. It’s partly like both sides hate Ukrainians and want their numbers reduced.
If Russia were truly “angry,” it would provide tech to Iran and NK. We haven’t seen that yet.
As if they would tell you/us. You have no clue what is going on behind the scenes.
I can see that Putin worries about nationalism dividing Russians and that he is worried about pro-WWII Axis Ukrainians.
The US also opposes such groups but temporarily has use for them in Ukraine. However, Russian nationalists support Russia in the war.
Anyway, it’s just concerning. Putin does encourage births in Russia, which is good.