What’s the Point of the Latest Ukraine Escalation?

This video depicts the novel Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile “Oreshnik” striking the PA Pivdenmash military-industrial facility in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, yesterday evening. The attack marks the first-ever use of a MIRV payload in combat. The Oreshnik is obviously designed for nuclear warheads, but this time the Russians deployed it with conventional munitions, as a mere warning to the West and a signal to us all that we have stepped closer to nuclear war than perhaps at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Russian attack comes in response to NATO provocations. Last Sunday, the senile U.S. President Joe Biden reversed his own long-standing policy and authorised the use of American long-range missiles against targets inside Russia. Six American ATACMS missiles were fired from Ukraine three days later, on Tuesday; a separate volley of British Storm Shadows followed late Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning. They were directed at targets in Kursk and Bryansk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had said in September that such attacks on Russian territory would “mean nothing short of direct involvement… that NATO countries, the United States and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine”. He promised that such “direct involvement” would “change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically”. A few weeks after these statements, the Kremlin proposed revisions to Russia’s nuclear doctrine, according to which “an attack from a non-nuclear state… backed by a nuclear-armed one” would be considered a “joint attack” that might justify a nuclear response. Putin approved these changes on Tuesday, hours before the first ATACMS volley.

In a statement after the retaliatory Russian attack on Dnepropetrovks, Putin observed that “the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has assumed elements of a global nature”. He also insisted that Russia is “entitled to use weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities”, and promised to “respond decisively and in mirror-like fashion” in the case of escalation.

As the amazing Taurus leak confirmed in March, Ukrainian personnel have neither the expertise nor the information to fire complex Western long-range missile systems. They are operated within Ukraine by NATO advisers, with targeting information from NATO satellites. The limited supply of these missiles (the United States has provided Ukraine with a mere 50 ATACMS, of which 44 presumably remain after Tuesday’s attack) and the formidability of Russian air defences moreover mean that these provocations have no hope of changing the course of the war. Even the Americans admit as much, confessing that their hope is merely “to send a message” to North Korean soldiers in Russia “that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them”. Biden administration officials also say they are emboldened by their belief that Trump’s election has reduced “the escalation risk of allowing Ukraine to strike Russia with U.S.-supplied weaponry”, because “Putin… knows he has to wait only two months for the new administration”. As often, doubting that one’s adversary will retaliate is itself highly dangerous and destabilising.

The German press is handling these ominous developments with its typical vision and maturity. The incurable sabre-rattlers at Welt, for example, are happily telling us that “Putin’s exaggerated threats show how weak he really is”:

The missile strike, in a sense, is… an admission of weakness. Putin knows that his constant nuclear threats have worn dull and no longer have the desired effect on Western politicians. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, for example, reacted with boredom to the new Russian nuclear doctrine this week. “We will not be intimidated, no matter what is trumpeted around,” Baerbock said. …

Putin’s increasingly belligerent bluster, followed by the missile deployment, also shows how powerless the Kremlin leader really is when it comes to stopping the Western support for Ukraine. “For the first time since Prigozhin’s coup, Putin seems to have taken a hard hit,” says Eastern Europe expert Nico Lange. “Now is the right time to double down.” …

Putin’s reaction shows that releasing the longer-range weapons was exactly the right step.

One of the most obnoxious consequence of NATO is what you might call the Crazy Girlfriend Effect. Many European countries and no few German politicians, secure behind the American defensive umbrella, just revel in their bellicosity in ways they wouldn’t if they actually bore direct responsibility for their own security. They’re like a drunk girl at a bar who is confident that her boyfriend will handle whatever hostilities she provokes. It’s instructive to compare insane stories like this one to the tone taken by the regime-adjacent American press, which is often much more sober about the enormous risks we’ve assumed for absolutely no reason, even quoting experts who acknowledge that “we’re in an escalatory spiral” with “a dynamic of its own”.

This article originally appeared on Eugyppius’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.