Ian Davis
20 September 2024
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has been requesting allies for months to let Ukraine fire Western long-range missiles into Russia to limit Moscow's ability to launch attacks. The missiles include US-produced Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and a British air-launched cruise missile known as Storm Shadow. Kyiv's allies, including the United States and Britain, are currently discussing whether to give Kyiv a green light to do so. Biden discussed the issue during a meeting on 13 September with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The Biden administration still isn't convinced that it should give Ukraine the authority to launch long-range missiles deeper into Russia, and US officials have reportedly asked Ukraine to spell out more clearly its combat objectives. The US already allows Ukraine to use US-provided weapons in more limited, cross-border strikes to counter attacks by Russian forces, but has argued that Ukraine should use ATACMS judiciously because they only have a limited number. Ukraine is already using its own long-range drones to hit targets further into Russia.
Jens Stoltenberg, the outgoing head of NATO, in an interview with The Times published on 17 September, dismissed an earlier warning by Russian President Vladimir Putin that letting Ukraine use such weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory would mean the West was directly fighting Russia. "There have been many red lines declared by him before, and he has not escalated, meaning also involving NATO allies directly in the conflict," said Stoltenberg. "He has not done so, because he realises that NATO is the strongest military alliance in the world. They also realise that nuclear weapons, nuclear war, cannot be won and should not be fought. And we have made that very clear to him several times", Stoltenberg added.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on 18 September described Stoltenberg’s comments as "dangerous", adding "this ostentatious desire not to take seriously the Russian president's statements is a move that is completely short-sighted and unprofessional”.
The view from NATO’s Military Committee
The subject was reportedly not directly discussed during the NATO Military Committee’s annual conference in Prague on 13-14 September, although the chiefs of defence did review the continued Western military support for Ukraine and the readiness of the alliance in case of a military threat. The chair of the Military Committee, Dutch Navy Admiral Rob Bauer, said the question of whether to allow Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with Western-made long-range missiles is a "political discussion" but, from a military standpoint, would be within Ukraine's legal right. “Every nation that is attacked has the right to defend itself. And that right doesn’t stop at the border of your own nation”, Bauer said, adding that nations have the sovereign right to put limits on the weapons they send to Ukraine. But, standing next to him at a press briefing, Lt. Gen. Karel Řehka, chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces, made it clear his nation places no such weapons restrictions on Kyiv. “We believe that the Ukrainians should decide themselves how to use it,” Řehka said.
Bauer also said NATO needs need a much larger defence-industry production capacity and it must be better coordinated to increase deterrence. "The more we ramp up our deterrence, the better chance we have of protecting the freedoms that we hold dear and preventing war from ever entering our soil," he said. Both Bauer and Rehka agreed on the need for greater defence expenditures, with Rehka saying, "It is evident that 2 percent of GDP on defence spending will not be enough". The military chiefs of staff routinely develop plans and recommendations that are then sent to the civilian NATO defence secretaries but questions remain over the transparency and accountability of such decisions.
The view from Moscow
President Vladimir Putin has warned that if Western nations allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons to strike inside Russia then it will mean NATO would be “at war” with his country. “This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict. It would mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia,” Putin told Russian state TV on 12 September. “And if this is so, then, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us,” he said.
On 13 September, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations gave a similar message to the UN Security Council. Vassily Nebenzia said that if Western countries allow Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes in Russia then NATO countries would be “conducting direct war with Russia”. “The facts are that NATO will be a direct party to hostilities against a nuclear power, I think you shouldn’t forget about this and think about the consequences,” Nebenzia told the 15-member council.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was even more explicit, saying that the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, could be targeted by a nuclear strike. The head of Russia's nuclear testing site said on 17 September that his facility was ready to resume testing "at any moment". Russia and the United States have the world's largest nuclear arsenals.
Escalating or ending the war?
The fear of the war widening is understandable. The more each side seeks some new advantage, the greater the chance of escalation, either by another country directly entering the conflict or by Russia choosing to use nuclear weapons. However, the evidence suggests that the impact of this decision alone on both the course of the war and the risk of escalation are slender.
In the course of the war, Washington and its allies have increased military aid to Ukraine in ways that were unthinkable when it started, including by providing tanks, advanced missiles and F-16 combat aircraft. That has prompted some Western politicians and experts to suggest Putin's nuclear rhetoric is a bluff and that the US and NATO should go all-out to help Ukraine win the war. Zelenskiy has said Ukraine's incursion into Russia, launched on 6 August, makes a mockery of Putin's red lines. Clearly, Putin knows that breaking the “nuclear taboo” is likely to escalate the war in Ukraine in ways that will make it hard to contain and control, and hence keeping the war limited to Ukraine is in Moscow’s interest.
However, since allowing Ukraine to use these weapons is unlikely to be decisive in a war of attrition with no clear path to military victory for either side, is it worth the risk? The humanitarian and environmental consequences of the war are already enormous. In August US officials estimated the Ukrainian death toll at close to 70,000, with 100,000 to 120,000 wounded, and Russian military losses as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injured troops (although alternative estimates of Russian casualties are lower). More than 11,700 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 and Ukraine has lost a fifth of its population to migration.
NATO’s support for Ukraine’s effort to fend off Russia’s invasion of their country is essential, but it needs to continue to be carefully calibrated to avoid escalation. On balance, US caution on the use of long-range missiles to attack targets deep inside Russia is sensible, and if permission is eventually granted, it should be on condition of strict adherence to military targeting in accordance with international humanitarian law. (That Russia is breaking international law with many of its own missile strikes does not abrogate Ukraine from following international law when exercising its right to self-defence).
The bottom line is that this latest debate about the merits of a particular weapon system is clouding a more fundamental question: how to end a long, grinding war that constantly risks escalation to a direct NATO-Russia conflict? Some form of negotiated peace is the only realistic option, and the West’s ongoing military support for Ukraine should be accompanied by a new diplomatic track aimed at ending the war. Given that complete victory over Russia is out of reach, a bitter compromise in which Ukraine – supported and secured by Western military and economic aid – retains its freedom but loses territory would likely be the best possible outcome, at least in the short term. In the longer term, those territories might be returned by international arbitration after Russia has freed itself from Putin. Towards such an end, internal opposition in Russia should be encouraged and the message needs to be loud and clear that there is a place for a democratic Russia in European institutions.