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In the first year of Russia’s war on Ukraine, the Biden administration was constantly worried that if Kiev fought back within Russia’s borders, President Vladimir V. Putin would retaliate not only on Ukraine, but perhaps on NATO and the West as well. was
But those fears have faded. As the Ukrainian counteroffensive approaches, a series of daring moves in Russia have taken place, from drone swarm attacks in Moscow, to shelling of towns in the Belgorod region that borders Ukraine, to the invasion of Russia by U.S.-made armored vehicles. welcome the attack. Diplomatically, he criticized the Biden administration with a shrug.
National Security Council spokesman John F. Kirby said last week whether Ukraine, or a Ukrainian-backed group, was behind the attacks in Moscow, saying: “We are not going to investigate this matter. No,’ he said. On Monday, fighter planes hit at least 10 villages in the Belgorod region with heavy artillery fire, the governor said.
Behind closed doors, government officials seem even more unfazed. “Look, this is war,” one senior Pentagon official said last Thursday. “This is what happens in war.”
U.S. officials see the cross-border strike as a preliminary operation for a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive, showing multiple stages. They say the operation is an important test of Russia’s defenses and a muscle-building exercise ahead of a major military push.
This is a stark departure from last year’s administration’s impatience, when US officials were careful not to supply Ukraine with weapons that could strike inside Russia, citing escalation concerns. In May last year, just two months after abandoning a European proposal to send MIG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, President Biden said: We don’t,” he said in an op-ed for the New York Times. “We have no intention of sending a rocket system to Ukraine to attack Russia.”
Twelve months later, Mr. Biden has agreed to send an equally deadly fighter, the F-16, to Ukraine.
what happened?
Since the early days of the invasion, battered Russian forces have shown that they are incapable of producing noticeable results against Ukraine, and a widening conflict risks escalating the US and NATO deeper into the war. And while fears that Russia might use tactical nuclear weapons appear to have receded somewhat, officials warn that the situation could change if Mr. Putin feels cornered. .
Evelyn Farkas, the head of the Russian and Ukrainian Department of Defense during the Obama administration, said, “The administration really understands that Russia is not only a strategic loser, but very likely a military loser. I steered in that direction,” he said. and executive director of the McCain Institute.
Dr. Farkas said escalation concerns remain, but “while they are real, they are not as terrifying as Russia is somehow prevalent.”
U.S. military officials say the reality of the battle is that it makes no sense to fight the enemy only on your own territory, without endangering the enemy’s stronghold, always defending it.
“When you’re at war, you can’t just sit back and let the enemy take the initiative,” said Frederick B. Hodges, a retired lieutenant general and former commander of the U.S. Army in Europe. “Under the UN Charter, every country has the right to defend itself, so for Ukraine this makes a lot of sense from a legal and military point of view.”
Officials in the Biden administration have publicly continued to say they do not want Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons in attacks on Russian territory by the Ukrainian military and militias.
“We do not encourage, enable or support strikes or attacks inside Russia,” Kirby said Monday at the White House. “Our effort is to help them defend their self-defense, territory and sovereignty.”
U.S. officials say the threat of nuclear escalation has not gone away, but Ukraine’s cross-border operations would not be the kind of action that would provoke the use of nuclear devices. U.S. intelligence officials say Russia will only deploy tactical nuclear weapons if Putin’s grip on power is threatened, the Ukrainian military begins to collapse completely, or it faces the loss of Crimea, which it occupied in 2014. said he was thinking of using
But miscalculations and mistakes by pro-Ukrainian operations have led to symbolic attacks within Russia that are more pernicious – ones that the Kremlin feels the need to respond to more forcefully – or European allies that oppose. Concerns remain that it could cause tensions and disagreements between Any Ukrainian effort to escalate the war, according to U.S. officials.
U.S. officials now say a Ukrainian attack on Russia is unlikely to prompt Russian attacks on NATO countries and installations. Putin wants to prevent the war from spilling over to other countries, which would lead to more US involvement and weapons that the Biden administration had been hesitant to provide for fear of being used by Ukrainians. It is possible to send it in. Inside Russia, officials said.
Of course, Biden is starting to do it anyway, from M1 Abrams tanks to delivering F-16s to Ukraine.
Several current and former U.S., European and Ukrainian officials say the recent cross-border incursion into Russia by pro-Ukrainian forces and drone strikes around Moscow marks the beginning of a long-planned counteroffensive in Kiev. said that
These preliminary strikes, dubbed “formation operations” by military analysts, are aimed at disrupting the Russian military’s combat plans, pulling the Russian military out of the main battlefield, and undermining the confidence of the Russian public in it. officials said in an interview. They discussed the planned attack on condition of anonymity.
Attacks have intensified in recent weeks, following attacks on Russian railways, supply lines, fuel depots and ammunition depots in Crimea and other parts of occupied Ukraine.
Michael Coffman, director of Russia research at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Virginia, said the cross-border operation has two main purposes. “The first is to bring war to Russia to show that Russia is not invincible,” he said. “The second is to get the Russian military to take border defense seriously, to dedicate resources and perhaps bring in troops from other countries.”
Coffman added, “This type of operation is low cost relative to strategic impact and is effectively scaled up by Ukrainian intelligence operations.”
One of the last things Putin wants is to make Russians fear that war is imminent, according to two officials.
But the Biden administration is walking a fine line. Administration officials have urged Ukraine not to use US-provided weapons to attack Russia on its own soil, while how they will use them is up to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and military commanders. He also said that it was left to the judgment of
“We don’t tell them where to hit. We don’t tell them where not to hit,” Kirby told reporters last week. “We don’t teach them how to operate. We give them equipment. We give them training. We give them advice and advice. Well, we do.” I sometimes do tabletop exercises with them to help them plan what to do.”
Britain, another of Ukraine’s main allies, went further.
Foreign Minister James Cleverley said last week that Ukraine has the “right to project force across its borders” to undermine Russian aggression, and that the state’s cross-border military targets are “legitimate as part of national self-defense.” It is recognized internationally,” he said. Cleverly said he didn’t know the specifics of the drone attack and was speaking more generally.
Military analysts downplayed the possibility that increasingly brazen and frequent attacks inside Russia would escalate the Kremlin’s response.
General Hodges said last year’s intensification of concerns had been “greatly exaggerated” by the administration, particularly concerns that Russia would retaliate against the West and NATO. But he said Russia had retaliated against Ukrainians.
“As time goes on, we’re getting the public to know that we’ve been putting the brakes on this as Russia continues to use precision weapons against apartment buildings to kill innocent Ukrainians. I was able to see without knowing it,” General Hodges said.
So far, U.S. officials say Russia has sometimes responded strongly to cross-border attacks, but has not escalated the war or launched any new responses to its operations. ,It has said.
U.S. officials said they believed the Ukrainian offensive was largely symbolic and that Russia would not escalate unless it destroyed critical infrastructure and national targets.
The only target attacked by Ukrainians last year was a piece of nationally important and critical infrastructure, the Kerch Strait Bridge, which connects Crimea to the mainland. In response to this attack, Russia launched an attack on the Ukrainian power grid, markedly escalating the war.
But beyond the bridge, attacks the US believes were carried out by Ukraine or groups linked to Ukraine, or targeted supporters of the Russian government, in Russian border cities are more symbolic than direct impact on the war. had a positive impact.
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