““It appears that Russian authorities are making significant efforts to influence the Western debate about allowing Ukraine to use Western-provided weapons for long-range strikes against military targets in Russia””, — write: www.radiosvoboda.org
ISW analyzed a report by The New York Times, which, citing unnamed American officials, wrote about the fears of American intelligence that Russia could take serious retaliatory measures if the United States and its allies allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western weapons.
NYT writes that the intelligence assessment notes that Russia is likely to respond with greater force against the United States and its allies, possibly through covert attacks on American and European strategic facilities and military bases in Europe, if the West allows Ukraine to use Western systems to damage to objects in the Russian Federation.
“The Kremlin has been conducting covert operations against Western powers long before the current debate over Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied weapons to strike Russia, and may plan to intensify these operations regardless of the West’s decision, as these operations support the Kremlin’s other goals of destabilizing European countries and undermining military readiness of NATO,” the message says.
ISW emphasizes that Russian forces are still advantageously located within the range of Western-provided systems for further Russian offensive operations against Ukraine, and that Western policymakers retain the authority to make decisions to change the situation and complicate Russia’s military efforts.
“It appears that the Russian authorities are making significant efforts to influence the Western debate about allowing Ukraine to use Western-provided weapons for long-range strikes against military targets in Russia. These Russian efforts show deep concern about the operational pressure that such strikes would place on Russian offensive operations in Ukraine, even though US officials are hesitant to allow Ukraine to carry out such strikes,” the report said.
Analysts note that even a small number of successful long-range Ukrainian strikes could prompt Russian forces to move significant military and storage facilities beyond the reach of Western-provided weapons and further from the front lines, complicating Russian logistics near Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, ISW says, has in recent weeks returned to the Western and Russian information space his most effective narratives, which have already pushed the West to self-restraint and delayed security assistance to Ukraine at critical moments in 2022 and 2024. According to analysts, Putin adapted them to specifically target the current debate in the West about allowing Ukraine to push deep into the Russian Federation.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi has repeatedly called on Western countries to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons for strikes on Russian territory. According to reports, this is one of the points of the so-called victory plan, which Zelensky presented to US President Joe Biden on September 26.
Representatives of the Russian authorities claimed that such a permission would be seen in Moscow as NATO’s entry into a “war” against Russia.
On September 25, Russian leader Vladimir Putin announced a nuclear response against the background of Kyiv’s efforts to obtain permission from the West to strike with Western weapons deep into the Russian Federation.
According to him, in the updated version of its nuclear doctrine, Russia plans to consider aggression by any non-nuclear state, but with the participation or support of a nuclear state, as a joint attack.
At the same time, the American Institute for the Study of War, analyzing Putin’s statement, noted that he continues to threaten the possibility of a nuclear confrontation between Russia and the West in order to strengthen control over Western decision-making and prevent the West from granting permission to Ukraine to use long-range weapons to strike military targets in Russian Federation
“ISW has long considered Russian threats of nuclear weapons as part of the Kremlin’s plan aimed at self-restraint in the West, and not as evidence of Russia’s readiness to use nuclear weapons. ISW continues to believe that Russia is unlikely to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine or elsewhere,” the analysts emphasized.