On November 18, 2024, Politico reported that London and Paris had given Ukraine their Storm Shadow/SCALP long-range missiles to Ukraine. As of this writing (Wednesday, November 20, 2024), Reuters reported that Ukraine fired a volley of up to twelve Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles into Russia’s Kursk region, a day after Ukraine fired six U.S.-manufactured ATACMS missiles into Russia’s Bryansk region.

That Ukraine fired a UK missile today makes evident that Biden must have permitted Kyiv to launch NATO long-range missiles into Russia. The redefinition of Russia’s policy on nuclear deterrence that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed this week, makes clear that Russia now considers the United States, the UK, and NATO at war with Russia.

Lobbing a few NATO-manufacture long-range missiles into Russia is unlikely to make any tactical or strategic difference in the war, not when Russia controls much of the Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine, including the Crimea as well as Donetsk and Luhansk provinces in eastern Ukraine. As I wrote in a previous essay, the Biden decision is best explained by what appears to be a preemptive military coup in which U.S. generals fearing prison terms and possible convictions for treason prefer the risk of triggering a global thermonuclear war rather than allowing Donald Trump to take office on January 20, 2024.

Image by AI.

For months, Putin has left no doubt that he will launch a retaliatory tactical nuclear response if Ukraine launches NATO-manufactured long-range missiles into Russia. On May 6. 2024, Moscow summoned the British ambassador to the Russian Foreign Ministry to issue “a warning that Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory with Russian-supplied weapons could bring retaliatory strikes against British military facilities and equipment on Ukrainian soil or elsewhere.”

Then, on........

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