F-16s, ATACMS, and Taurus Missiles to Ukraine Could Spark NATO-Russia Escalation
11:00 GMT, 6 October 2023
The provision of ATACMS, Taurus, and F-16s to Ukraine could lead to Russian retaliatory strikes against NATO targets in Europe, retired Russian Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky told Sputnik's New Rules podcast, adding that it would then be up to the US whether to start World War III.
SputnikUS President Joe Biden recently hinted that his administration was preparing deliver cluster bomb-carrying Army Tactical Missile Systems (
ATACMS) with a range of 300 kilometers to Ukraine. “I have spoken with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky, and everything he’s asked for, we’ve worked out,” he told reporters in the White House briefing room on Wednesday.
For its part, Germany is still considering sending Taurus cruise missiles that could be fired at a distance of 500 km. Earlier, the UK and France supplied Kiev with
Storm Shadow/
SCALP missiles, having a range of 250 km. The Ukrainian military has already used these rockets to attack civilian infrastructure and targets in Russia’s new regions.
Still, supplying new long-range missiles to Ukraine will make Europeans and Americans direct participants of the conflict, said retired Russian Lieutenant General Evgeny Buzhinsky.
"I do not have firm information about how the Russian president, Russian military command will act, but I am sure that if the strikes of Taurus of ATACMS are very harmful for Russia, then I presume we will strike at least the logistical hub in the territory of Poland in Rzeszów," Buzhinsky told Sputnik. "And in this case it is up to the United States to decide what to do. Either to go to a Third World War with mutual destruction or to leave the Poles fighting Russia alone."
To date, Russia has adopted a restrained approach in conducting retaliatory strikes, according to Buzhinsky. He noted that for the time being, Russia has largely targeted electrical power plants, some industrial facilities which produce or repair military equipment, and the places of deployment of Ukrainian forces. At the same time, most Ukrainian bridges, tunnels, and other infrastructure remains intact.
However, "if Ukraine gets, for example, Taurus or ATACMS missiles and starts delivering strikes against targets in the territory of the Russian Federation, Crimea included, of course, I think that Russia will escalate and will deliver strikes on a much [greater] number of targets in Ukraine," the retired lieutenant general said.
Why F-16 Supplies to Kiev Could Lead to Major Escalation
Meanwhile, the delivery of F-16 combat aircraft to Ukraine could escalate the conflict even further, since these fighter jets would almost certainly have to be based on NATO territory, per the Russian military expert:
"I think that the supply of combat aircraft will be the moment of truth for the United States. Why? Because there are not enough suitable airfields [in Ukraine] for the deployment of Western combat aircraft – specifically F-16s. And that's not only smooth runways, but also the logistic and maintenance infrastructure. I don’t think it’s very possible to build that infrastructure under the constant fire of Russian forces. So, I think that F-16s will be deployed on the territory of Poland, Romania."
"In this case, of course, according to all international laws, if an aircraft takes off from an airfield and delivers strikes against other forces, it becomes a lawful target for return strike. I think that the United States will have to decide in this case whether to invoke Article Five and say, as President Biden constantly says, 'We'll defend every inch of the territory of our allies,' or declare, 'Okay Poles, that's your business bilateral with Russia, so please fight and we'll support you,'" Buzhinsky continued.
Late last month, the US Department of Defense officially announced the beginning of the training of would-be F-16 pilots from Ukraine. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry expects to get F-16 jets promised by Ukraine's NATO backers in 2024. However, US generals have already warned the Kiev regime that
F-16s would not be a "silver bullet" for the Ukrainian Air Force and are unlikely to become a game-changer on the battlefield.
23 September 2023, 12:00 GMT
Russia Has No Incentive to Use Nuclear Weapons in Ukraine
While the collective West keeps going up the escalation ladder in Ukraine, some observers wonder what might become a potential trigger for Russia to resort to a nuclear option – literally, its nuclear weapons. "Forget about it," the Russian military analyst responded.
"To use nuclear weapons against targets in the territory of Ukraine makes no sense, because it will be a strike against our own territory," Buzhinsky said. "We have quite a variety of missiles, high precision bombs, so we have the means to strike the Ukrainian command and control infrastructure and transportation infrastructure, such as bridges and tunnels, to seriously destroy or even cut the roots of transportation of Western equipment to Ukraine."
"My position is that you cannot control any use of nuclear weapons. You start with non-strategic nuclear weapons and the escalation is imminent. It will all end in a global catastrophe with the devastation of the United States, Russia for sure, and Europe, of course. As for the rest of the world, the consequences are also known. There are models, of course, of a nuclear winter, of no light, nothing. But that's only modeling. So nobody knows. But as for physical destruction, that's for sure," the veteran continued.
At the same time, Moscow has no illusions about the unfolding US hybrid war against Russia. "We are actually at war with the United States, not at the hot stage of war, but in all kinds of war," Buzhinsky underscored, referring to the fact that last year, Washington openly proclaimed the goal to strategically defeat Russia.
Prior to that, the US had accelerated NATO's expansion towards Russia's borders and shattered one-by-one the pillars of strategic stability between Moscow and Washington: the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM), which United States abandoned in 2001, and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the United States abandoned four years ago, the expert pointed out.
After the White House and the Pentagon vowed to use the Ukraine conflict to bleed Russia white, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended the New START, a nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation.
"In these circumstances to be abided by the restrictions of a treaty? Well, President Putin considers that it is, let's put it like this, not natural," Buzhinsky remarked.
"Economic war is in full swing, because imposing 20,000 or 30,000 sanctions [on a country] is the first such case in history, that a country has such a number of sanctions being imposed on a single country. Information war is in full swing. The diplomatic war – our embassies, the US Embassy in Moscow and our embassy in Washington are not actually operating as they used to operate and they should operate. I spoke to our ambassador in Washington, who said that the level of communication between the State Department and Russian Embassy is the level of third secretary, second secretary, there is an exception, and that mainly all the meetings with the counterparts of the State Department are being actually on the benches near the building of the State Department. So the only sphere where the actual war is not fully being engaged is the direct confrontation, although some elements of this confrontation, I mean, the supply of weapons to the countries with which Russia is at war, of course, it is an element of the hot stage of war."
Evgeny Buzhinsky
Retired Lieutenant General
Despite Western mainstream propaganda scaring its audience with Russian nuclear strikes "out of desperation," nothing of the kind would happen, according to the military expert. According to him, Moscow has other ways to remind the collective West about the danger of escalatory behavior. In October 1961, the USSR tested the thermonuclear aerial "Tsar Bomba" to warn NATO against escalation. "So maybe that's an option," Buzhinsky suggested. "More so that the people in the United States are talking about resumption of nuclear testing."
21 September 2023, 15:04 GMT