Kyiv wants to launch Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles at Russia’s heartlands as ‘demonstration’ attacks

Ukraine wants permission from the west to use long-range Storm Shadow missiles to destroy targets deep inside Russia, believing this could force Moscow into negotiating an end to the fighting.

Senior figures in Kyiv have suggested that using the Anglo-French weapons in a “demonstration attack” will show the Kremlin that military sites near the capital itself could be vulnerable to direct strikes.

The thinking, according to a senior government official, is that Russia will consider negotiating only if it believes Ukraine had the ability “to threaten Moscow and St Petersburg”. This is a high-risk strategy, however, and does not so far have the support of the US.

Ukraine has been lobbying for months to be allowed to use Storm Shadow against targets inside Russia, but with little success. Nevertheless, as its army struggles on the eastern front, there is a growing belief that its best hope lies in counter-attack.

  • fuckingkangaroos@lemm.eeEnglish
    12·
    2 months ago

    They’re saving their best troops for if their initial assault fails defending the border defending Moscow city limits

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        91·
        2 months ago

        Europe and the west are hesitant to provoke Russia for a reason. Idk why that’s such an unpopular opinion here.

        Yeah, nuclear weapons and domestic political concerns around openly escalating a war as opposed to supplying a defensive war. No one is particularly hesitant to admit that Russia has nukes and or that that influences how NATO handles the situation.

        People think that looking at the past decades of what’s happened to Russia, and the recent failures they’ve had and concluding that they’re just “holding back” is assinine.

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            8·
            2 months ago

            You asked why Europe would want to avoid pushing Russia too far.
            You can either come up with a complicated answer involving Russia having a vast reserve of undemonstrated military might and thinking that anyone found the “denazification” excuse plausible, or you can remember that they have nukes and even with a military that poses no plausible threat or defense to NATO being a nuclear power is a great deterrent.

            Why, lacking evidence to the contrary, you would pick the more complicated explanation is a mystery.