US President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use American long-range Atacms missiles on Russian territory is causing controversy. These armaments are already in the Ukrainian arsenals and Kiev has no choice but to use them, but some stakes remain. The Atacms must only be used to strike in the Russian region of Kursk, where the Ukrainians penetrated months ago and from where the attacks of Vladimir Putin’s army, now also flanked by North Korean troops, originate.
The White House’s intention is to discourage Pyongyang dictator Kim Jong-un from sending more soldiers to the Russian-Ukrainian front, as well as to allow Kiev to better defend itself. The debate on whether or not Ukraine should be allowed to strike beyond its border with Western weapons has recorded and continues to record different positions among NATO allies, and certain European countries, including Italy, while remaining firmly convinced of the need and duty to help the attacked Ukraine for as long as it is needed (a commitment firmly reiterated at the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro), are not convinced of the usefulness of signing up to incursions of various kinds in the regions belonging to the Russian Federation. Doubts in this sense are not lacking even in the United States, but the Biden Administration has perhaps chosen to raise its sights in the face of the resurgence of Russian military aggression, which is the news of these very days.
The Kremlin claims that it is the US, all the more so after the breakthrough regarding the Atacms missiles, that is throwing further petrol on the fire of the conflict, but Vladimir Putin, through words and deeds that are concretely dramatic, seems to be the only one who wants to procrastinate the war as much as possible and push the beginning of a peace process back to uncertain dates. Biden’s missiles or not, if Russia were to cease assaulting Ukraine with its army, everything would stop almost instantly and negotiations would really be just around the corner, but, apparently, Putin intends to chase away the possibility of serious negotiations, which, it goes without saying, do not involve the humiliating surrender of Kiev alone, because his Armed Forces have resumed massively bombing Ukrainian cities and infrastructures with hundreds of planes and drones. Moreover, the Russian president has chosen as an ally one of the worst scoundrels on the planet, namely, North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong-un. Instead of discussing a way out with the West, Putin engages with the one who threatens the world every day with nuclear weapons.
The flirtation with Kim and the recourse to soldiers offered on loan from Pyongyang may also reveal a beginning of shortness of breath for Russia, which is beginning to suffer from a shortage of human material to send to the front and to need a little help across the border, but the Kim-Putin pact may above all be a demonstration of the will to strengthen an axis of evil with the usual double-dealing of the People’s Republic of China. All this is the fuel of war, not US-made Atacms. Things may change in a short time, hopefully for the better, but at the moment this is the state of the art.
