The decision by the US government to approve Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles could mark a turning point in a conflict which reaches its 1,000th day on Tuesday.
What is unclear is what exactly the outcome of that turning point will be.
Ukraine and its allies in Washington, London and other European capitals – particularly those near Russia’s border – clearly hope that it will prove instrumental in fending off the advance of Vladimir Putin’s forces, which have seized back territory gained by Kyiv in the western Kursk region this year, and at the weekend carried out one of the largest air attacks on Ukraine of the war so far.
There is also a hope that giving President Volodymyr Zelensky a freer rein to strike inside Russia will deter North Korea from sending more troops to fight in the conflict, to join the 12,000 soldiers already deployed by Pyongyang.
But Russian politicians have warned that President Joe Biden’s decision to approve the ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) was a “very big step toward the beginning of the third world war”.
Those close to president-elect Donald Trump, including his son, Donald Trump Jr, have also warned that the move will escalate the conflict into a global war.
After months of resisting requests from Zelensky to approve the long-range missiles, Biden gave the go-ahead in part because he wanted to deter Kim Jong-un from sending more troops to Russia, a US official told The Washington Post, warning that the initial deployment had been a “costly mistake”.
And speaking last week, Western officials revealed that the arrival of those North Korean troops was effectively a game-changer for the US – because it focused minds in the Pentagon that they were dealing with a potentially much wider theatre of war, beyond the European and Atlantic region to the Indo-Pacific.
This led the US government to reassess the situation with the war, officials said.
But the help may have come too late.
Matthew Savill, Rusi’s military sciences director, said there was now a limited military impact the missiles could make, because many of the best targets had been moved to airbases outside of the range of ATACMS.
Ukraine will still have the opportunity to strike military headquarters and ammunition or supply locations for Russian and North Korean troops in the Kursk region, Savill said, but he added: “This would be a reduced impact from when the Ukrainians first requested these weapons.”
But alongside the existing Himars rocket launchers, the ATACMS “may help the Ukrainians fight to hold on to the Kursk incursion in the face of Russian counter-attacks and inflict casualties on those North Korean forces that are now operating inside Russia”.
The decision may have a bigger political impact, Savill said, although Ukraine has a “narrowing window of opportunity” before the arrival of Trump in the White House on 20 January.
He said: “The Ukrainians need to convince the incoming US administration that they are still worth backing – in President Trump’s transactional view, a ‘good investment’.
“And they will want to convince him to link his and US credibility to a ‘winning’ outcome, not a major compromise that sees the US ‘lose’.
“However, the signs are not positive on this front, with criticism overnight from amongst the Trump campaign of what they may see as a Biden attempt to tie Trump’s hands. Moreover, it is unlikely that the Ukrainians can have a major impact in such a short period of time (under two months) until the next administration is formally in place, and with an uncertain but probably small stockpile of ATACMS.”
Biden, along with Sir Keir Starmer and French president Emmanuel Macron, have vowed to put Ukraine in the “strongest possible position” going into winter – by supplying more military assistance to bolster Kyiv forces in advance of an expected lessening off of US help from 20 January, when Trump arrives in the White House.
The US wanted to get “everything out of the door” by the inauguration, one western official said.
It is now clear that that includes arming Kyiv with long-range missiles.
What is not yet known is whether that armoury will include British-made long-range Storm Shadow missiles.
Starmer, while en route to the G20 summit in Rio, acknowledged that the entry of North Korea into the conflict had “serious implications” for the conflict and global stability.
He added: “Recently we’ve seen the addition of North Korean troops working with Russians which does have serious implications.
“I think on one hand it shows the desperation of Russia, but it’s got serious implications for European security … and for Indo-Pacific security, and that’s why I think we need to double down on shoring up our support for Ukraine and that’s top of my agenda for the G20.
“There’s got to be full support as long as it takes and that certainly is top of my agenda, shoring up that further support for Ukraine.”
It is understood that the British government is in principle in favour of them being used, but that Washington approval is needed because they cannot be used without US targeting equipment.
Just because the US has given the green light for ATACMS does not automatically mean that the use of Storm Shadows will also be given the go-ahead.
Downing Street remained tight-lipped about Storm Shadows on Monday, insisting that to reveal plans in advance would hand an advantage to Putin.
Senior Russian officials have reacted angrily to the move by Washington. Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov, in comments to state news agency Tass, called Biden’s decision “a very big step toward the beginning of the third world war.”
And Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred journalists to a statement made by Putin in September, in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically – This will mean that Nato countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia.”
But Savill said Russia’s reaction could be seen as “an attempt to scare off international support, rather than a precursor to a direct confrontation”.
He added: “Russian officials have spent the past two years already alleging that US support (and that of other international partners for Ukraine) amounts to ‘direct involvement’ and is ‘unacceptable’. This, and Ukrainian use of ATACMS and weapons like Storm Shadow in Crimea (already regarded by Russian officials as Russian territory) suggests that conventional strikes have been “priced in” to the Russian war effort.
“Second, Russia has already escalated in its attacks, predominantly on Ukrainian civilian targets and the Ukrainian power grid.”
