US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday. Throughout the week leading up to this visit, the world community was abuzz with reports of ballistic missiles being supplied by Iran to Russia. This means that we won’t have to wait long for American and British missiles to hit Russian soil.
When a decision has already been made, but is controversial, it needs to be somehow legitimized or, simply put, justified. Thus, a man who decides to drink whiskey in the morning is looking for a reason that may seem convincing and will somehow justify his act. And it does not matter at all whether the reason is fictitious or real.
It is not known for certain whether Iran has supplied Russia with tactical missiles or not. Iran continues to deny that it has delivered Fath-360 missiles to Russia, despite White House claims that it has evidence of the delivery. The Russians are silent.
But Blinken is not silent. According to him, dozens of Russian servicemen have been trained in Iran to use Fath-360 missiles and Russia will probably use them against Ukraine within a few weeks. The Americans say Iranian missiles will give Russia additional capabilities and greater flexibility, since Russia will now be able to use its own arsenal to strike targets behind the front lines and Iranian weapons to strike closer targets. And he immediately stated in an interview with the British television channel Sky News that Washington does not rule out lifting the ban on strikes on Russian territory by American long-range missiles (please for more information about the issue read the analysis titled “The US has explained why it does not allow Ukraine to use US weapons to attack targets inside Russian territory“).
So the pretext was found (or manufactured) to give permission for strikes inside Russia.
But in reality, the decision has already been made. And the West has been committed to this plan since August. CNN reports that senior Democrats are “urging Biden to lift restrictions on Ukraine striking targets deep inside Russia” and not to fear escalation.
In their letter to Biden they note: “The administration’s concerns about escalation have been consistently refuted since the first day of the war. Neither Ukraine’s use of US-supplied weapons to Russia nor its military invasion of Russia’s Kursk region—the first foreign occupation of Russian territory since World War II—prompted a Russian escalation of retaliation.”
Whether this decision will be announced during Blinken and Lammy’s visit to Kiev or not (the long-range missiles will be American and British) is not so important. Ukrainians are already happily drawing maps of Russia with the destruction radius of Western missiles – already reaching Moscow.
