Kyiv Reports Russia Fired an ICBM Into Ukraine. A Western Official Denies

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The Ukrainian military is reporting that Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) along with six other missiles at Dnipro, in Ukraine’s southeast. But an unnamed Western official told ABC that the missile was not a long-range weapon, but rather a shorter-range ballistic missile.

The Russian missile was launched from the Astrahan region, in Russia’s southwest. According to Google Maps, the distance from Astrahan oblast to the city of Dnipro is more than 1,200 miles. The other missiles fired at Dnipro were KH-101 missiles with a range of about 2,100 miles.

If true, this is a major and troubling escalation by Russian President Vladimir Putin, after Biden did some escalating of his own, giving the green light for Ukraine to launch American ATACMS into Russian territory for the first time. This kind of tit-for-tat escalation could get out of control. Previously, Putin said he changed Russia’s nuclear doctrine to make any attack on Russian territory by Ukraine with Western missiles an attack that would require a nuclear response.

I’m not trying to be an alarmist. But once the escalation game starts, someone is going to have to climb down off the ledge or the world will be in big trouble. I don’t see Putin backing down. And the real scary thing is that Biden is allowing Ukraine to unleash the full panoply of U.S. weapons on Russia proper because he thinks that his “Ukraine Project” won’t last much into Donald Trump’s term of office.

Obviously, Putin was sending a message with the ICBM launch. Washington and the West probably see this “message” in the same context as other Putin warnings about red lines in giving Ukraine Abrams tanks, fighter jets, and long-range missiles.

Associated Press:

The developments come as the war has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development that U.S. officials said prompted U.S. President Joe Biden’s policy shift on allowing Ukraine to fire longer-range U.S. missiles into Russia. The Kremlin responded with threats to escalate further.

Putin has previously warned the U.S. and other NATO allies that allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied longer-range weapons to hit Russian territory would mean that Russia and NATO are at war.

Biden keeps stepping across Putin’s red lines, confident that the Russian president won’t act on his threats. What if Biden is wrong? I’m sure Biden and his advisors have gamed out dozens of scenarios, and the psyche folks at CIA have analyzed Putin’s words and actions and are assuring Biden that Putin isn’t serious, just as he wasn’t serious about enforcing all his other “red lines” during the war.

I needn’t remind anyone that if Biden and his advisors are wrong, there are no do-overs, no second chances. And that’s a huge problem.

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If you’ve never read it, you should read Robert F. Kennedy’s “Thirteen Days,” a book about the Cuban missile crisis. The movie doesn’t do the book justice. It was a harrowing time, as you can imagine. President Kennedy struggled not to put Kruschev in a corner while trying to keep the U.S. from surrendering.

In the aftermath, the myth arose that “We were eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked.” In fact, Kennedy gave up some strategically valuable Jupiter ICBM’s stationed in Turkey, so who “blinked” is a matter of perspective.

I don’t trust Joe Biden to manage the situation. At this point, presidents are concerned about their “legacy.” How that plays out in Ukraine and with Russia will determine whether Biden and we will even have a legacy to examine.