Kyiv navigates Putin’s red lines — and western indecision

Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s meeting with the US president at the White House on Thursday will mark the latest attempt by the Ukrainian leader to convince the Biden administration on the need for the latest military kit to fend off Russia’s attacks: long-range missiles.

Since the launch of the Russian full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s western allies have repeatedly had to be cajoled and reassured by Kyiv that introducing new weapons on Ukraine’s side is worth the risk, and Moscow will not follow through on threats to retaliate against them.

Ukraine has repeatedly pleaded with the US to provide such missiles to strike the bases of the warplanes Russia uses to drop glide bombs and launch missiles targeting Ukrainian cities.

But the Biden administration remains wary of green-lighting the request, despite increasing support for it from many of its western allies and a fierce push by the UK.

Kyiv’s request has taken on more urgency after western intelligence agencies confirmed that Iran supplied Russia with ballistic missiles, which the west also sees as an escalation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last week warned that allowing the use of western long-range missiles against targets within Russia would mean “direct participation” of Nato in the war with Ukraine.

Deputy national security director Dmitry Medvedev threatened to “turn the mother of all Russian cities” [Kyiv] into a “molten grey mass” in response.

This is familiar territory for Nato leaders who since the start of the war in 2022 have been getting bolder about punching through Russian red lines.

No decision has yet been reached on the missiles, western officials insist.

But Russian officials say they believe Washington has made up its mind to allow allies to supply British Storm Shadow and French Scalp missiles — which crucially depend on US satellites and Nato personnel to guide them to their targets.

What to make of Russian threats to escalate, even to use nuclear weapons, has prompted a fierce debate in western capitals. Many analysts say that Putin’s red lines are growing less credible the more times he draws them and fails to act.

American officials however worry that Russia could escalate the conflict in other theatres, such as in the Middle East where Moscow has considered giving the Houthis anti-ship missiles.

US officials say they are not convinced that allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia will yield significant advantage on the battlefield, given that the Russian military has moved 90 per cent of its aircraft outside the range of western long-range missiles.

Another argument for Washington not to allow Kyiv to use long-range ATACMS missiles on targets in Russia is that the US only has a limited amount of these systems which can be used elsewhere in Ukraine, including to hit Russian bases in occupied Crimea.

But, western officials note, the US has frequently said it would not provide a particular weapon, citing many of these same reasons, only then to go ahead and allow it after pressure from the Ukrainians and European allies.

The US ultimately relented and provided Ukraine with battle tanks, F-16 jets and ATACMS after earlier insisting publicly that it would not.

In Europe, the US’s dithering has been mirrored by Germany, which is also opposed to arming Kyiv with its long-range Taurus missile for fear of escalation.

Since 2022, Berlin first resisted, but then gave into allied pressure and allowed German tanks and other military equipment to be sent to Kyiv.

While the Kremlin has so far not escalated “up the nuclear ladder” according to one analyst, it has recently widened the scope of its retaliation through sabotage attempts in Europe and by backing western adversaries such as North Korea.

Putin himself has made joking reference to Russia’s rapidly shifting red lines, indicating that they do exist, but only he knows where they really are. “Well, as for these “red lines”, let me keep this to myself,” he told an audience in June 2022.

“I don’t think Putin worries about his credibility in the eyes of the western public,” said Dmitri Trenin, a professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

In response, western countries have been escalating incrementally, using “salami slicing” or “boiling the frog” tactics as analysts have put it.

“The Biden administration has taken a very cautious approach to risk,” said Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.

Still, he said, in Russia “they are worried that if they keep allowing these small steps, after two years they will see direct missile strikes on the Kremlin if they don’t find a way to push back”.

“Russia has been looking for ways to attach costs to western decisions to escalate,” added Gabuev.

He said Moscow had a whole toolbox at its disposal: military action, the nuclear threat, which the Kremlin views as “the ultimate insurance against defeat in this war” and hybrid threats from cyber and influence operations to sabotage and transfer of weapons to American adversaries.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said recently that Russia “is sharing technology that Iran seeks”, including nuclear technology.

Putin discussed this openly at the St Petersburg economic forum in June: “If they send weapons to the zone of hostilities and urge [Ukraine] to use them against targets inside Russia, why cannot we do the same? Why cannot we respond in kind?”

Academics who study the dynamics of nuclear superpower confrontation say the dangers of getting it wrong are astronomical and the arguments are largely theoretical.

“The problem is that we can’t know,” said Janice Stein of the University of Toronto. “People want to deal with probabilities but the problem with nuclear [weapons] theory is that there is no empirical evidence,” she said.

There was a danger for western leaders to “overlearn” from incremental escalations when they meet no resistance, she said. But the “costs of inaction” were also important to consider. “At times, those costs can be so high that we are willing to entertain the possible dangers of action.”

Last year, the UK, Germany and the US agreed to supply Ukraine with tanks despite Russian threats. The first batch of F-16 fighter jets arrived in Ukraine in June with Moscow vowing to strike Nato airfields in response.

Each time, the hawks argue they have been vindicated as Russia’s retaliation fails to materialise. The long range missiles seem to many to be a similarly one-sided bet.

But leaders have an interest in maintaining a certain amount of ambiguity about their intentions, Stein said. “Being too clear is not an advantage,” she said. “If you are overly specific, you trap yourself, you foreclose your own options.”

Illustration by Ian Bott