1000 days. That’s how long the three day Special Military Operation in Ukraine has been going on. That’s 142.8 weeks or 38.8 months or 2.75 years. I know I gave a bit of an update a few days ago, but there has been a significant development that needs to be discussed.
The Biden-Harris administration finally made the decision to allow Ukraine to use ATACMS and other Western-built long range strike munitions, namely Scalp EG/Storm Shadow, inside of Russia proper. Frankly, this was overdue, by a year or more. The proximate cause was the use of North Korean troops by the Kremlin, or at least that is what is being said.
Media reports indicate that the UAF fired six of the 190 mile range ballistic missiles at a target near Bryansk. The 67th GRAU Arsenal, a critical ammunition storage facility was hit. Unfortunately, Twitter is still not embedding properly, so you’ll have to click thru to see the videos.
https://twitter.com/ukraine_map/status/1858703076472881164
The Russian MOD is claiming they shot down 5 of the 6 and the damage was caused by debris from the intercepts. This claim is laughable on its face. The Russians have trouble shooting down any ballistic missiles with the air defense systems they are using. Based on the video and images I’ve seen, there were several impacts and much of the storage is just gone. Locals report hearing several missiles and specifically say they were not drones. We’ll have to wait for satellite images to be sure of the type and extent of the damage though.
I want to be very clear about something, the Ukrainian use of these missiles is not going to start WWIII, it is not going to cause Russia to use nukes and it is not going to widen the war in any way. You know how I know this? Putin is neither crazy nor suicidal. He’s gotten the escalation management mid-wits at State to brown their trousers every other time he rattled the nuclear saber, why not do it again. Here’s a list of Putin’s ‘red lines’ and the reaction to them being crossed:
As you can see, none of the ‘red lines’ crossed so far have led to anything other than the Russians targeting more civilian targets. This one will be no different.
For those of you who will point out the facts that Putin signed new legislation about the doctrinal use of nuclear weapons and what is and what isn’t considered an act of war, he signed the same documents back on 25 September. Same language, same saber-rattling tone. Given the state of the Russian economy – a kilo of potatoes is up by 70% beets by 60%, bread 40% and overall inflation is north of 8% since the beginning of the year – I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he actually signed the same documents.