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ATACMS is a relatively fast ballistic missile (top speed between Mach 3-4, so not hypersonic but quite close) fired from within short range (300km max range). This gives air defenses a very small window to respond and shoot down the missile. A 4-5 minute window from firing of the missile to impact at max range. Ukraine had lots of success with thisin the beginning, and are probably having success again now because they are firing a lot of them. Realistically the is little air defenses can go when faced with this type of threat. Even the most advanced air defence systems in Israel failed to shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles.

Putin's been talking recently about how Zelensky is now an illegitimate ruler given the lack of elections in Ukraine, which is interesting when combined with the information that Yanukovich was recently spotted landing in Belarus.

It would be very funny if, with Putin's backing, Yanukovich would be declared the interim president of Ukraine.

The ATACAMs story should be dividided into two points, tne actual material effect on the war(if any) and the political/human factor i.e the current NATO aggression and escalation.

#1 I think Mercouris is very much on point today with his reponse, (here) with the consistent historical analysis so far, this is not the first time Ukraine had success with their missile strikes, such success was brief, but it wasn't the only time then so its obviously not going to be the only time now, in the end the trend is Russia probably has the means to continue to adapt and eventualy develop countermeasures.

The material cost of the war and the imbalance between Russia vs the west is still the key point. As he says, what is the expectation here, what is the end goal? The west can't make many more ATACAMs but Russia can surely make more S-400s. Ultimately there is nothing but a unicorn victory here, what is destroying a S-400 in Crimea going to achieve?

In fact Simplicius makes this point below while demonstrating he is being very inconsistent here.

Ukraine is poised to potentially prick Russia badly and now has the demonstrated capability to do so without Russia able to reliably neutralize the threats. If Ukraine gets the go ahead to use ATACMS and perhaps even the Storm Shadows, Taurus, etc., on Russian soil—not counting Crimea, which they’ve already done as they consider that not to be Russian territory—then all hell could break loose as Russia has not demonstrated the capability to stop the ATACMS reliably, and Ukraine could very well hit extremely sensitive targets that would put Russian command and control at a historic crossroads.

But why has Ukraine suddenly begun to demonstrate such an ability to hit important Russian objects? Answer: mostly because it has poured the remainder of its money toward asymmetric style warfare. You see, none of these attacks damage the real Russian army or change any of the calculus on the ground. But given that Ukraine knows that nothing it can do will change that, it has wisely decided to pour the remainder of its resources into drones and long range weapons capable of at least shaking things up in very asymmetrical ways.

The goal is clear: Zelensky and co. likely want Russia to respond with tactical nukes. For Zelensky—dictator of a country which has already brushed off the world’s worst nuclear reactor disaster in Chernobyl, and which cheerily irradiates its own land with Western supplied depleted uranium shells—a small nuclear incident is the tiniest of possible prices to pay for his regime being saved by subsequent NATO intervention.

Excuse me what? This is literaly unironicaly getting lost on the narrative. I do not agree with this double thinking. The Russian army will simultaneously be thrown into a chaos and at the same time nothing will change in the course of the war?

You can't reach this conclusion, press both buttons here which is why I prefer the conservative stance here i.e this is a short term advantage that is not significant in the long term given the underlying material realities of the war.

#2 - Yet both of them agree that this is yet another step along the escalation/provocation ladder which yeah its undeniable. But who is realy going to waste time guessing where the famous "red lines" realy are? Unless you're paid to write articles or make YT videos about this panic, just keep betting on nothing ever happens.

The Russians should know the European general population is not ready to die for Zelensky, in fact the EU regularly goes back and forth, anyone remember Zelensky being shunned on the NATO summit last year? We know THAT meme?

Its hard to keep making guesses but I think it is still naive to assume NATO intervention is guaranteed at all... Its pointless to make long term predictions but Ukraine is a neoliberal project that is ultimately not really essential to EU/NATO. They can cut their losses and abandon Ukraine at any time specialy if the EU fascist parties start winning elections.

I've got some kind of thesis brewing about how imperialism doesn't allow for the idea of stopping or slowing down escalation, they can only conceive of victory and just get more frustrated when they don't win the way they're supposed to. Like, would Biden have to follow your leader himself for this thing to break? idk. I wish they'd just stop.