Fresh off getting the West to sign off on the main battle tanks he’s long sought from the US and Germany, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is already pressing for more, and specific, advanced systems from his external backers.
In his Saturday night address, he pleaded for deliveries of the US Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, to protect cities which are far from front line fighting. “There can be no taboo in the supply of weapons to protect against Russian terror,” he said.
On the same day, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev issued a scathing condemnation in reaction to the Biden administration and other Western officials claiming that ramped-up arms deliveries are actually helping to prevent a world war.
“Firstly, defending Ukraine, which nobody needs in Europe, will not save the senile Old World from retribution if anything occurs. Secondly, once the Third World War breaks out, unfortunately it will not be on tanks or even on fighter jets. Then everything will definitely be turned to dust,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram Saturday.
Kremlin officials have of late made the point that the US M1 Abrams as well as German Leopard tanks will make little difference on the battlefield, other than to ensure rapid escalation between NATO and Russia.
Medvedev was also specifically responding to remarks out of Italy’s defense chief, as Russian state media writes:
In this post, Medvedev commented, in particular, on Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto’s remarks that the Third World War would erupt if Russian tanks reached Kiev and “the borders of Europe”, and that the weapons sent to Ukraine were meant to stop the escalation. Medvedev equated his remarks to the calls from the United Kingdom to provide Kiev with all the weapons NATO has.
Medvedev’s reference to everything being “turned to dust” was without doubt reference to potential nuclear exchange as a result of runaway escalation. The former president and close Putin confidant has repeatedly warned of things going nuclear in Ukraine if the West keeps pumping heavier arms to the Ukrainians, and if Moscow loses the war.
Interestingly, a fresh lengthy report by RAND Corporation seems to agree that continued escalation on the part of Washington could prove disastrous. RAND, though notoriously hawkish as essentially the Pentagon’s think tank arm, now argues that in Ukraine “US interests would be best served by avoiding a protracted conflict,” and that “costs and risks of a long war…outweigh the possible benefits.”
Tyler Durden
Sun, 01/29/2023 – 19:00
