Ukraine
Analysis

West’s missile go-ahead to Ukraine would hold no shortage of risks

Dan Sabbagh Defence and security editorAny decision to let Kyiv fire western missiles at Russia could have dramatic impact and must be carefully calibrated

Antony Blinken and David Lammy’s joint trip to Kyiv, to be followed by Keir Starmer’s trip to Washington DC to see Joe Biden on Friday, has inevitably lifted expectations that Ukraine will shortly be given permission to fire Anglo-French Storm Shadow and US Atacms missiles, which have a range of 190 miles plus, into Russia.

There are no shortage of risks. Allowing Ukraine to fire western-made weapons deep into Russia could have a dramatic political impact on the course of a war mired in a grim, attritional slog that appears to be favouring Moscow, whose forces are bearing down on the strategic town of Pokrovsk.

Blinken and Lammy provided a potential justification for the missile escalation on Tuesday, censuring Iran for supplying a first batch of short-range, high-speed Fath-360 ballistic missiles to Russia, a step up from the slower Shahed drones it has given Moscow until now. Russia was likely to use the missiles “within weeks”, Blinken warned.

The Fath-360 missiles have a range of about 75 miles, according to the US. They could be used to strike Ukrainian cities close to the frontline such as Kharkiv or Zaporizhzhia, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the Donbas, and even theoretically Kyiv, and allow Russian to use its own stock of longer-range cruise and ballistic missiles to attack targets elsewhere in Ukraine, as it has done throughout the war.

The missile war in Ukraine may appear unceasing, but it follows its own logic of inventories, with Russia’s goal being to exhaust Ukraine’s air defences. Kyiv has already run out of short-range Buk and S-300 systems, which left its power stations defenceless earlier this year. Ukrainian sources estimate that about two-thirds of its energy generation has been destroyed, and it will not be possible to repair more than a fraction before what is likely to be the country’s hardest winter since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.

A similar strategy will be in the Kremlin’s mind when it comes to higher-value air defence systems, notably the US-made Patriots. Biden announced the donation of four Patriot systems at the Nato summit in July, but a limiting factor is the number of interceptor missiles that can be manufactured. This year Lockheed Martin, which makes the most capable PAC-3 MSE interceptors, expects to manufacture 550.

Ukrainian sources are concerned that the number of offensive missiles the Russians can fire could exceed the world’s ability to manufacture interceptors, even if Kyiv has other air defences such as Samp/T and Nasams. One estimate circulating in Kyiv is that Russia can make 1,200 missiles a year, though reliable numbers are impossible to come by. Other figures are lower: an estimate from the Rusi thinktank puts it at 420 Kh-101 cruise missiles plus a handful of high-speed ballistics.



The key point is that as long as the Kremlin believes it can win, or can retain the initiative, in an attritional war, it has no incentive to consider negotiations. Even allowing for the surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk province, it is Kyiv that is struggling. Experts hope that Ukraine can hold on to Pokrovsk, the gateway to the Donbas, for the rest of this year, but Russia holds a force advantage estimated at four or five to one – and soldier numbers are the one area where the west cannot help.

What infuriates Ukraine is that it cannot hit back at military targets inside Russia with powerful missiles because the west, led by the White House, has not allowed Storm Shadow and Atacms to be used there. However, the signals of the last few days are that the prohibition is not absolute. Bill Burns, the CIA chief, said on Saturday he was sure Biden “will consider other ways” that Ukraine could be helped as the war heads towards its third winter.

The complication is that it is hard to imagine the US, the UK or the other countries involved in the manufacture of Storm Shadow, France and Italy, simply giving Ukraine a free hand in where it might bomb inside Russia. It would not be hard to work out if either weapon had been used, and a miscalculation by Kyiv, perhaps killing a lot of civilians, would have wider consequences. Nor are there large stocks of either weapon, prompting scepticism in the US that they could turn the tide.

An effective use of long-range missiles might come only as part of a wider military plan, if Ukraine has one. At the end of August, Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Voldoymyr Zelenskiy, visited Washington, where it was reported that he would present a list of targets that Ukraine believed could be effectively bombed. The complication is that such discussions appear to bring the US and the UK closer to the heart of Ukrainian planning on how it wants to attack Russia.

Ukrainian insiders have also talked about using the threat of long-range missiles against Russia to try to force an end to the war, through a “demonstration strike” that would make clear to the Kremlin that it is possible to threaten the heartlands around Moscow. It is not obvious if Moscow would react so benignly, however, which may be why Burns, starkly, said the west should not be intimidated by Russian threats of nuclear escalation, raising the possibility that Putin may do just that.

Zelenskiy argued at a meeting of western defence ministers in Germany last week that being able to strike into its enemy’s territory would help ensure “Russia is motivated to seek peace”. But the calibration has to be careful. Time may be short for Ukraine, given that a US election looms in less than two months, and on Tuesday, one of the candidates, Donald Trump, would not say if he wanted Ukraine to win.

Missile diplomacy may not have been so significant since the time of the cold war.


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SEPTEMBER 11, 2024 8:31 PM CET
BY VERONIKA MELKOZEROVAKYIV — Ukrainian hopes that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken would use the occasion of his Wednesday trip to Kyiv to announce a loosening of the rules preventing it from hitting targets inside Russiawith donated weapons came to nothing.

Instead, Blinken, speaking alongside his counterpart from the United Kingdom David Lammy, said that the two top diplomats would take the information they gathered in the Ukrainian capital back to Washington, where U.S. President Joe Biden meets with U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday.

"We had discussions today about situation on battlefield, Ukraine’s objectives and what it needs to succeed," Blinken said. "I am going to take that discussion back to Washington. And both of our bosses will discuss that on Friday."

While no announcement was made in the Ukrainian capital, the White House is looking at expanding the area inside Russia that Ukraine can hit with American and British-made weapons, officials told POLITICO.

Ukraine is pushing hard for the weapons ban to be dropped, arguing that it can't defend itself against the rain of Russian missiles, bombs and drones without being able to hit the airfields and bases where those weapons are stored and launched. But Kyiv's allies worry about crossing the Kremlin's red lines and escalating the war.

The Kremlin is playing on those worries.

Further supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine are "fraught with uncontrolled escalation," warned Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Wednesday.

However, Blinken noted that it was actually Russian leader Vladimir Putin who was escalating by expanding the strikes against Ukraine.

"We’ve seen Russia now pursue and indeed escalate its attacks inside Ukraine, on civilians, on energy infrastructure, as well as on the Ukrainian military that’s defending its country,' Blinken said. "And we’ve now seen this action of Russia acquiring ballistic missiles from Iran, which will further empower their aggression in Ukraine. So if anyone is taking escalatory action, it would appear to be Mr Putin and Russia."

KYIV, Ukraine — The key eastern Ukraine city of Pokrovsk is without a drinking water supply or natural gas for cooking and heating, authorities said Thursday, as the Russian army’s attritional slog across the Donetsk region lays waste to public infrastructure and forces civilians to flee their homes. A water filtration station in Pokrovsk was damaged in recent fighting, and more than 300 hastily drilled water wells are the city’s last source of drinking water, Donetsk regional Gov. Vadym Filashkin said. The previous day, Russians destroyed a natural gas distribution station near Pokrovsk, Filashkin said. Some 18,000 people remain in the city, including 522 children, he said. More than 20,000 people have left in the past six weeks as Russian forces creep closer to residential areas, Filashkin said. “Evacuation is the only … choice for civilians,” he added. Pokrovsk is one of Ukraine’s main defensive strongholds and a key logistics hub in the Donetsk region, which lies on part of the 600-mile front line. Its capture would compromise Ukraine’s defensive abilities and supply routes and would bring Russia closer to its stated goal of capturing the entire Donetsk region, which it partially occupies. Russian troops backed by artillery and powerful glide bombs have turned Donetsk cities and towns such as Bakhmut and Avdiivka into bombed-out shells, though the push has cost Russia heavily in troops and armor. Ukrainian forces have held out as long as possible, even when strongholds such as Chasiv Yar appeared to be in danger of imminent collapse. Ukraine has also launched a daring incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, partly in the hope that Russia will divert its troops there from Donetsk. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that Moscow’s forces recaptured 10 settlements in Kursk and listed their names. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces have “started counter-offensive actions” in the region but insisted that Ukrainian troops had anticipated such a response. Russia has fired missile and drone barrages at Ukraine just about every day since the war began in February 2022, aiming especially at the power grid and potentially dooming Ukrainians to a bitterly cold winter this year.

The United States and Britain pledged nearly $1.5 billion in additional aid to Ukraine on Wednesday during a visit to Kyiv by their top diplomats. Much of that will go to restoring the electricity supply. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “we’re again seeing Putin dust off his winter playbook, targeting Ukrainian energy and electricity systems to weaponize the cold against the Ukrainian people.” An overnight drone attack on Konotop, a town in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, largely knocked out the electricity supply, regional officials said. The blasts also blew out an “incredibly high number” of windows in the city and damaged many of the town’s tram tracks, Mayor Artem Semenikhin said. Russia launched a total of 64 Shahed drones and five missiles over eastern, central, and northern regions of Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said in its Thursday morning report. Ukraine has expressed frustration that its Western partners won’t let it use sophisticated modern weapons they supply to hit places inside Russia where the missiles and drones are launched from. Some Western leaders fear that would trigger an escalation of the war. But after Iran recently supplied ballistic missiles to Russia, according to the U.S., those rules of engagement could be set to change in coming days as heavier Russian bombardments could swamp Ukraine’s meager air defenses. In other developments, Ukrainian Military Intelligence claimed to have shot down a Russian Su-30SM jet over the Black Sea. A post on the agency’s social media Thursday said the warplane was hit with a portable surface-to-air missile. Also, Zelenkskyy posted photos of a ship loaded with grain that he said was struck by a Russian missile Thursday shortly after leaving Ukrainian territorial waters. The merchant ship was taking wheat to Egypt, Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram page, adding that nobody was injured in the strike. Ukraine last year managed to break through Russia’s Black Sea blockade and ship millions of tons of grain using a route that hugs Ukraine’s southern coast.

Why there’s no easy answer to Russia’s glide bombs

Allies are still discussing how to counter them, with officials indicating that Ukrainian drone attacks may be the best bet.

SAM SKOVE


SEPTEMBER 10, 2024

As the West hunts for a way to help Ukraine stem Russia’s devastating glide bomb attacks, officials and analysts have said Kyiv’s request to use U.S. missiles won’t address the problem, while other methods come with drawbacks as well.

The munitions, which are dropped by Russian aircraft, are cheap but powerful. Each bomb consists of an unguided aerial bomb, of which Russia has many, to which a guidance kit is retrofitted for a cost of $30,000. Weighing up to 6,000 pounds, some contain enough explosives to level entire buildings with a single strike.

Russia is dropping as many as 3,500 glide bombs a month, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said earlier this year. Ukrainian troops cite the weapon as a key reason for Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.

For months, Ukraine has sought U.S. permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to strike the Russian airfields that launch the glide-bomb missions. In May, Ukrainian parliamentarians pressed U.S. officials in D.C., followed by Zelenskyy’s appeal in July. In late August, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov presented U.S. officials with a list of Russian airfields and other targets within Russia that Ukraine would like to hit with ATACMS.

So far, the United States has been unmoved. On Sept. 4, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said ATACMS would have little utility because Russia had moved 90 percent of its glide-bomb-dropping jets out of range.

An official from a NATO member state agreed, saying that it was an open question as to what the right weapon was for reducing glide bomb strikes.

The United States, Ukraine, and its allies continue to discuss ways to counter the glide bombs, though, according to the official.

“It may be that actually it's better to focus on the current things [Ukraine] does now," with long-range attack drones, the official said.

The munitions, which are dropped by Russian aircraft, are cheap but powerful. Each bomb consists of an unguided aerial bomb, of which Russia has many, to which a guidance kit is retrofitted for a cost of $30,000. Weighing up to 6,000 pounds, some contain enough explosives to level entire buildings with a single strike.

Russia is dropping as many as 3,500 glide bombs a month, Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said earlier this year. Ukrainian troops cite the weapon as a key reason for Russian advances in eastern Ukraine.

For months, Ukraine has sought U.S. permission to use the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, to strike the Russian airfields that launch the glide-bomb missions. In May, Ukrainian parliamentarians pressed U.S. officials in D.C., followed by Zelenskyy’s appeal in July. In late August, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov presented U.S. officials with a list of Russian airfields and other targets within Russia that Ukraine would like to hit with ATACMS.

So far, the United States has been unmoved. On Sept. 4, U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said ATACMS would have little utility because Russia had moved 90 percent of its glide-bomb-dropping jets out of range.

An official from a NATO member state agreed, saying that it was an open question as to what the right weapon was for reducing glide bomb strikes.

The United States, Ukraine, and its allies continue to discuss ways to counter the glide bombs, though, according to the official.

“It may be that actually it's better to focus on the current things [Ukraine] does now," with long-range attack drones, the official said.

Speaking to reporters on Sept. 6 after meeting with Ukrainian officials, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin likewise appeared to suggest Ukrainian drone strikes were the best solution. Ukraine has “a lot of capability” in terms of drones to strike targets in Russia, he said.

Austin did not directly address other arguments that ATACMS could be usefulfor striking command posts and other targets that remain within reach.

Ukraine has struck Russian airfields multiple times with drones, although it’s unclear how effective those strikes have been.

John Hoehn, an associate policy researcher at the think tank RAND, agreed that using Western missiles against Russian airfields was unlikely to be effective.

For one, the number of Ukraine’s long-range Western missiles is relatively limited, said Hoehn. Russia, meanwhile, is dispersing its planes such that each plane would require a missile each. Ukraine could also use the missiles to attack Russian runways, Hoehn said, which would likely be repaired within days or weeks.

Hoehn said a better approach might be to send Ukraine more Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, or AMRAAMs—particularly the AIM-120D variant—to down Russian planes before they can drop their bombs.

The AIM-120D, produced only for the U.S. military and select allies, has a reported range of 100 miles.

Ukraine has already received some AMRAAMs. However, these appear to be older variants such as the 1990s-era AIM-120B.

The U.S. has said it will eventually export new AIM-120s to Ukraine. These are likely the AIM-120-C8-s, which are designated as the “export” variant, rather than the AIM-120D, which are designated for domestic use.

The AIM 120-C8, which has identical specifications to the older AIM-120-C-7, has a shorter range than the AIM-120D. Delivery of those missiles will also take between three and five years.

Hoehn said providing Ukraine with AIM-120D variants comes with problems. For one thing, it would give potential U.S. allies a close look at the combat performance of one of its most advanced air defense weapons, while also driving down the number available to the United States in case of a war with China. Shooting down planes deep within Russian territory is also a political risk, he added.

“It’s a balancing act,” said Hoehn



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1. NEWS
2. DEFENSE

Zelenskyy complains West won’t even talk about shooting down Russian missiles

“They just change the subject” on that issue, said Ukrainian president.

SEPTEMBER 13, 2024 3:27 PM CET
BY VERONIKA MELKOZEROVAKYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday he wants allies to start shooting down Russian missiles and drones over the west of Ukraine.

“If the allies shoot down missiles together in the sky of the Middle East, why is there still no decision to shoot down drones and missiles over Ukraine? Even when those drones fly towards the EU,” Zelenskyy said during a conference organized by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation in Kyiv.

“When we raise this issue during the negotiations, the partners don't even say they are working on it like they say about everything else … they just change the subject. They are scared to even tell us 'they are working on it.' And so far, only Belarus has been seen shooting down Russian drones,” Zelenskyy added, referring to Russian ally Minsk taking out some stray kamikaze drones.



Ukraine said there was a double standard earlier this year when Kyiv saw a wide coalition of Western countries helping Israel to repel a massive Iranian attack of missiles and drones.

Ukraine has been suffering huge Russian missile and drone strikes almost daily, with some targeting gas storage sites near the EU border, while some stray drones have even flown into the territory of Romania, Poland and now Latvia.

But Kyiv's partners so far see shooting down missiles over Ukraine as them more explicitly entering the war and potentially escalating the conflict with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Aug. 24 that NATO countries are continuing to discuss joint protection of the Ukrainian sky from Russian attacks. But German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he sees that as being out of the question and, so far, the U.S. has been in lockstep.