President Joe Biden has given permission to Ukraine to strike inside Russian territory with American munitions, though he has restricted their use so Kyiv can only hit targets over the border close to Kharkiv after Russia made significant advances around the city in the northeastern part of the country close to the Russian border, two US officials told CNN.
Russia has stated they will hit back.
The fact is these weapons are given by the US, targeted based on US intelligence from operators outside Ukraine, and almost certainly fired with a push of the button by US forces or only upon US approval. The US is entering the war as a direct combatant and Russia claims to be growing tired of their salami-slicing tactics (honestly who can say though, the war of words has been at maximum for a while now and Russia seems to be trying to manage the west to prevent escalation which unfortunately allows some degree of escalation and may be taken as weakness by the west and a sign to push things up to the point there is no going back).
Russia has stated they reserve the right to strike the US, any parts of NATO responsible for this (intelligence centers, etc) in retaliation AND that if the US escalates in response to such strikes that they will deploy and use nuclear weapons.
Things are getting very bad, very quickly as the failing west desperately tries to hold onto its hegemony. Russia is fully aware of what their victory means for that hegemony and the west seems so as well. So we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. Russia cannot accept a rump state along current lines armed to the teeth by NATO, the west cannot accept a loss.
Will we all die in nuclear fire? Will saner heads prevail? I know it's not reasonable but I kind of wish for a movie moment here, for trains and trains of DPRK or Chinese soldiers to show up at the Ukraine front, overwhelm the Ukrainians and quickly put an end to the conflict before the west can escalate.
The rulling classes never showed any concern over killing millions of people. I dont think they grew any empathy meanwhile. This madness will end in war, be it a civil war inside the US, or a world war set to kill billions (with the B) of people. The US didnt do all it did in the past years preparing for war to just give up now. Either the power to do this war is taken away from the rulling classes in the US or they will go ahead
We're not anywhere near a revolutionary moment. 30% of the country is convinced Russian influence operations control a lot of the country and installed Trump and are trying to destroy the US entirely. 40% of the country (overlapping with above somewhat) is convinced China is trying to destroy and control us with tik-tok and the rest are mostly too tired, too beat down by bad labor conditions and life to care to think on it one way or the other.
US civil war is a meme. It's not happening anytime soon, even the strongest moments of BLM were minor and the US is far too good at managing things at home and distracting the masses. We're decades out from discontent and economic conditions getting bad enough that there's anything resembling an insurrection and it won't be red states vs blue states but uprisings in cities that grow and grow and refuse to be extinguished as they get more intense.
World war it is then if you're right. And likely nuclear because Russia can't win against US and NATO without devastating losses and a huge mandatory mobilization. China won't intervene because that's against their foreign policy. The DPRK could I suppose decide letting the US host nuclear weapons in the occupied south is unacceptable and launch an attack to retake the south and catch the US with their pants down but I'm skeptical they will either.
Though I suppose Russia could blink at the last moment and decide they'll tolerate a heavily armed, NATO-ified rump state on their border rather than go to nuclear war. Russia's reluctance all along has worsened things for them and I'm not entirely convinced they're over it. The amount of times they talk about wanting talks comes off as almost pleading really which signals weakness to the vicious west and I'm afraid probably could lead to escalation from the west mis-analyzing all this as a sign that if they just push them a bit more they'll sue for peace or give up. Then again this all could also just be western bluff and bluster and they could be out of ideas other than playing Nixon's "madman" card against Russia and hoping they back down.
I honestly feel there are no sane heads left in the west.
hey now
I highly doubt we'll die in a nuclear fire, and I'm 90 percent sure than saner heads will prevail. I highly doubt the west all actually do anything over Ukraine.
I would love Chinese, Cuban, DPRK troops and Congolese socialists to show up suddenly and propel the UkraNazis.