President Joe Biden may just have made his riskiest wager yet in the years-long Russia-Ukraine war — while incoming President Donald Trump continues to call for a swift end to the conflict.
Ukrainian forces launched U.S.-provided long-range missiles into Russian territory on Tuesday after recently receiving approval from Biden officials, though the White House refuses to publicly confirm that it gave Kyiv permission to do so, according to various reports. While it is unclear how U.S. officials are betting the new move will work in Ukraine’s favor, it’s unlikely to quell tensions or make it any easier to end the war in the coming months, something Trump has vowed to do by January.
“It’s essential to understand,” former Pentagon official Elbridge Colby said on Monday, that the Biden administration “is leaving a terrible situation [for Trump].”
Until this weekend, Biden and his administration have refused to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles for deep strikes inside Russia, citing that it would risk escalating the war, prompt Russia to respond erratically and fail to provide Ukraine with any tangible strategic advantage. That changed over the weekend when reports emerged that U.S. officials gave Kyiv the green light to start using American surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMs) for such strikes, apparently at least in part due to Russia’s decision to deploy North Korean soldiers along the front lines of the war.
While he refused to confirm any details on record, White House National Security Advisor Jon Finer told reporters Sunday that Russia had been “putting fuel on the fire” of the war and that the battlefield conditions were subject to “evolve and change.”
Some defense and foreign affairs experts were troubled, given the Biden administration’s previous obstinance to making such a move and the obvious risk escalators.
“There’s no benefit from a U.S. national security perspective. Heightened proxy attacks inside Russia only elevate risk with Russia and will make the war harder to wind down,” author and international security professor Max Abrahams said on Monday.
Biden’s move is all but certain to drag the U.S. further into the ongoing conflict. The Biden administration has already sent tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine since February 2022, and more recently allowed American defense contractors to travel to the region to help Ukrainian forces with various armaments — a first since the war started.
Russia has become no less hostile over the last two years, throwing as many resources as it can afford toward the war even at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. After months of threats against continued U.S. involvement, Russian President Vladimir Putin updated the country’s nuclear doctrine on Tuesday, essentially lowering the bar for which conditions nuclear weapons could be used.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, when asked whether Russia could respond to long-range missile strikes with nuclear weapons, said Tuesday that the country “reserves the right” to respond accordingly if conventional weapons create a “critical threat” to its “sovereignty and territorial integrity,” according to The New York Times. Putin himself has not directly addressed the matter.
The White House downplayed Moscow’s actions Tuesday, telling the Daily Caller News Foundation it was “not surprised” by Moscow’s new nuclear doctrine, given that it was announced two months prior.
“Observing no changes to Russia’s nuclear posture, we have not seen any reason to adjust our own nuclear posture or doctrine in response to Russia’s statements today,” a White House National Security spokesperson told the DCNF. “This is more of the same irresponsible rhetoric from Russia, which we have seen for the past two years.”
Biden’s increasingly hawkish approach to the Russia-Ukraine war seems to be in stark contrast with Trump’s plans to end the conflict. While the Biden administration has not outlined its hopes for any timeline to end the war, Trump has promised that he will bring it to a finish before he takes office in January — weighing on his deal-making abilities, his relationships with both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his ability to bring them both to the negotiating table.
Ukrainians also seem increasingly wary of continuing the conflict. Roughly 52% of Ukrainians surveyed want Kyiv to negotiate a peace deal with Moscow as quickly as possible rather than continue fighting, according to a Gallup poll released on Tuesday.
Revelations that Biden has allowed Ukraine to use ATACM systems angered some Trump allies this week, who warned it would only serve to drag out the war further and bring new risks for the U.S.
“No one anticipated that Joe Biden would ESCALATE the war in Ukraine during the transition period,” former Trump administration Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said on Sunday. “This is as if he is launching a whole new war. Everything has changed now – all previous calculations are null and void. And all for politics.”
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