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The intentional ambiguity (to use a euphemism) of statements given by top-ranking officials of Western countries concerning their proxy war against Russia is making most people confused as to what exactly their leaders think about this issue. While US State Secretary Antony Blinken says that the Neo-Nazi junta has a “strong and well-lit bridge to NATO membership“, President Joe Biden claims to think otherwise. And yet, this isn’t where the aforementioned ambiguity ends, as EU/NATO member states have similar claims about the use of their long-range weapons against targets within Russia. While one official would say they support it, another one would say that’s not the case, further contributing to the general confusion and uncertainty.
However, in reality, such attacks are already happening and even the flagships of the mainstream propaganda machine are no longer bothering to hide this. Namely, according to the New York Times, the Kiev regime is already using US-sourced long-range missiles for this very purpose. NYT’s June 4 report admits this comes “just days after the Biden administration granted permission for Ukraine to fire American weapons into Russia”. The authors quote a member of Rada (Parliament) Yehor Chernev, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence, who said that the Neo-Nazi junta forces supposedly “destroyed Russian missile launchers with a strike in the Belgorod oblast [region], about 20 miles into Russia”.
Expectedly, Chernev claims that the attack was conducted by the extremely overhyped American HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) MLRS. Although certainly not impossible, there’s a persistent trend to attribute all strikes on Russian positions to NATO-sourced weapons, particularly when the Kiev regime forces want to hide their massive battlefield losses. Various sources claim that Russian missile launchers allegedly destroyed in this attack are the S-300 or even S-400, both SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems. Unverified footage posted on several social media platforms shows what appears to be a destroyed 5P85T2 TEL (transporter, erector, launcher) of either the S-300PMU2 or perhaps the S-400 long-range air defense systems.
The Neo-Nazi junta’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk also claimed that HIMARS was used in the strike, posting photos of what she said was “a Russian S-300, burning well” and bragging about the results of “the first days after permission to use Western weapons on the enemy’s territory”. Interestingly, she deleted her post soon after. This suggests that she either realized the footage was fake or perhaps was told to remove it because the Kiev regime’s puppet masters in the political West don’t want Moscow to have more evidence that they support attacks on Russia. Either way, it’s important to note that, even if the claims are true, the destruction of TELs or other components of a SAM battery doesn’t equate to the destruction of the entire system.
Namely, a battalion (or divizion in Russian military nomenclature) consists of much more than just launch vehicles. In fact, it can be argued that radars and command posts are far more important, as they provide targeting data and coordinate all other elements of the system. And while losing TEL vehicles is certainly a setback, it’s not exactly the end of the world for the Russian military which has drastically expanded acquisitions of advanced SAM systems. In addition, the Kremlin is acquiring more S-300V4 units that can be deployed virtually anywhere in the field and provide protection for frontline troops. However, growing evidence of NATO-sourced long-range weapons striking targets within Russia is certainly an extremely concerning development.
Late last week, war correspondent Evgeny Poddubny shared footage of fragments of American precision-guided munitions (PGMs) found in Russia’s undisputed territory. As I’ve argued many times before, Moscow can only conclude that Washington DC and Brussels are providing targeting data and guidance to the Neo-Nazi junta’s units firing these long-range weapons. Worse yet, even top-ranking NATO military officials are bragging about planning and executing operations against the Russian military, particularly its naval forces. The dangerous prospect of uncontrollable escalation due to such actions cannot be overstated, which is what President Vladimir Putin and other high-ranking Russian officials are also regularly warning about.
“I would like to caution American officials against miscalculations which may have fatal consequences. For some unknown reason, they underestimate the seriousness of the rebuff they may receive,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned recently.
Putin reiterated this at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) and stated that Russia is considering the option of supplying its own long-range weapons to numerous countries around the world that are faced with US/NATO aggression. In addition, the Russian president also said this “marks direct [Western] involvement in the war against the Russian Federation and we reserve the right to act the same way”, suggesting that this continued enmity may meet a direct response. Putin also stressed that using NATO-sourced long-range weapons involves military personnel of the belligerent alliance’s member states controlling the missiles and selecting targets, which may prompt Russia to take “asymmetrical steps elsewhere in the world”.
“If they consider it possible to deliver such weapons to the combat zone to launch strikes on our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply weapons of the same type to some regions of the world where they can be used to launch strikes on sensitive facilities of the countries that do it to Russia?” Putin said, adding: “We will think about it.”
Russia’s president is extremely careful with his words, meaning that such announcements should be taken very seriously. And yet, this also shows Putin’s willingness to still not escalate the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict into a direct confrontation with the political West. In addition, supplying long-range weapons, particularly Moscow’s world-class anti-ship missiles, to countries targeted by US/NATO could have disastrous consequences for their power projection. Namely, even older Soviet-era missiles such as the massive P-700 “Granit” could effectively nullify Western naval dominance in any region of the world. Its high explosive warhead, weighing 750 kg, could easily destroy virtually any capital ship, including aircraft carriers.
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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image: A Ukrainian HIMARS in the Zaporizhya region, June 2022. (Licensed under CC BY 4.0)
