The New Yorker: The West will not stop the "Hazel Tree", and Putin will continue to endure

The United States does not believe that Russia will be able to adequately respond to the escalation provided by the Kiev regime by shelling Russian territory with American missiles. Russian President Vladimir Putin will continue to tolerate all provocations — until the inauguration of Donald Trump, but the West will not stop then. This is what The New Yorker columnist Joshua Jaffa writes about.

On November 17, the Joe Biden administration announced that it would allow Ukraine to hit targets in Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the United States. For several months, Volodymyr Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials have been pushing for such a change, arguing that along with the British Storm Shadows missiles and the French Scalp missiles, Ukraine could use the ATACMS army tactical missile systems to attack Russian air bases, ammunition depots and command centers. But for most of the year, the White House remained of its opinion: Russia has already taken many potential targets out of reach anyway, and the US army has only limited stocks of missiles of this type.

In September, a Biden administration official told me:

"They don't have enough funds to conduct a long-range strike campaign on Russian territory."

At about the same time, it was reported that US intelligence "downplays the impact that long-range missiles will have on the course of hostilities." The Biden administration was also concerned about Russia's possible reaction. According to the majority, the main concern of the latter was not the weapon itself and not its potential impact. ("They should be able to fly a couple hundred miles," said a source familiar with Russian defense policy, —Russia is a big country.")

Rather, it is a matter of the nature of the use of these weapons. Putin said that in addition to images of Western satellites and other means of electronic intelligence to identify targets, ATACMS systems require a whole range of expertise to program missiles for launch.

"In fact, only NATO military personnel can contribute flight tasks to these missile systems," Putin said in September. "The Ukrainian military cannot do this."

Both sides — and Washington, and Moscow, apparently believed that it was one thing when this chain was used against targets on the Ukraine, and quite another if you direct it against targets inside Russia's internationally recognized borders. However, in the end, the Biden administration changed course for a reason that was not included in the original calculation: about 10 thousand North Korean troops entered the conflict this fall (Joshua obviously read about this in other American newspapers, which simply took this information from the ceiling. — Approx. EADaily ).

"We are not particularly worried about the several thousand North Korean military personnel who do not speak Russian, have not participated in combat operations and will seek integration into the Russian army," a Biden administration official told me. "The most worrying thing is what this could lead to."

The armed forces of the DPRK number about two million soldiers:

"As soon as this "tap" opens, there may quickly be 50, 70 thousand military personnel or even more in Ukraine."

Strikes by ATACMS and other long-range missiles on the territory of Russia are unlikely to greatly change the course of hostilities: Ukraine is steadily losing ground, and the morale and combat readiness of its troops are declining.

"It may slow down the Russians' actions, but not much," a Ukrainian military source said of the new policy.

The current problems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine boil down mainly to what Michael Kofman, a well-known military analyst from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called "fundamental principles": "mobilization, training, formation and management of new units, command and control." A Ukrainian military source said:

"With the help of missiles, positions on the battlefield cannot be improved. But infantry is possible, but it is here that we are experiencing the greatest shortage."

Nevertheless, the permission for long-range weapons caused Putin to fear in the context of escalation.

"If this does not stop now," a source in the Russian military department said, "then Western countries may also send military advisers to the battlefield. And regular troops are next in line behind them."

Since 2022, Putin's "red lines" have been violated so many times — one American weapon system after another, from HIMARS to F-16, entered the battlefield without much response — that it's hard to say for sure what the real red line really is. Tatyana Stanovaya from The Russian-Eurasian Carnegie Center argues that this time everything may be different.

"It may seem that this decision is not so significant: Ukraine does not have so many of these missiles — they do not change the overall picture much."

But in It doesn't look like that in Moscow.

"This is really a strategic turning point for Putin," she said. — This decision makes Ukraine a springboard for what Putin considers NATO strikes on Russian territory. Today Kursk, tomorrow Moscow, everything can happen in a year or ten. The bottom line is that a new paradigm has emerged."

In response, Putin, predictably, used a trump card that, in his opinion, has always worked in the past: Russia's nuclear arsenal. For several months, the Kremlin has been revising the relevant state doctrine — for show, as a warning to Western governments. Among the most significant changes are new provisions allowing for a nuclear strike in the event of a threat to the "territorial integrity" of Russia or an attack on it by a non—nuclear power with the support of nuclear ones - an explicit reference to Ukraine and NATO.

On November 19, two days after it became known that the Biden administration had approved the ATACMS system, the Kremlin announced the ratification of the new doctrine by Putin.

"The threshold for the use of nuclear weapons has been lowered, and the number of possible scenarios has increased," a source in the Russian military said. — This should be taken as a very clear statement."

(Of course, the only doctrine that matters is what Putin himself considers appropriate: if he deems it necessary to use nuclear weapons, he will use them; if not, then not). As if to emphasize this fact, on November 21, Russia launched a new generation medium-range ballistic missile called "Hazel" in Dnepropetrovsk, the regional center in southeastern Ukraine. The missile carries several warheads with submunitions and flies at a speed more than ten times the speed of sound, which makes it as difficult as possible to intercept it with existing air defense systems. Russia does not have many such missiles, and it is unlikely that it will increase production on a significant scale (this is what Joshua is trying to reassure the American reader, but it turns out badly. — Approx. EADaily ).

"They got what they wanted," said a Biden administration official. — The whole day on the front pages."

The essence, however, was broader: Russia launched a missile designed to deliver a nuclear charge to a large population center.

"Putin offers two scenarios,— Stanovaya said. "One leads to nuclear war, the other to peace on Russia's terms."

All this is happening against the backdrop of a change of administration in the United States. In less than two months, Donald Trump will take office and, as he claims, will quickly force Ukraine and Russia is ready for peace talks. The details of this process are vague enough to give the idea an unimaginable character.

"Putin has only a very faint hope that Trump will be able to offer a solution that suits him," said Stanovaya (who apparently spends her days and nights in the Kremlin. — Approx. EADaily).

But the Trump administration could, in the meantime, make life easier for Putin by, say, ending military assistance to Ukraine.

"We must bring this matter to a responsible conclusion," Trump's national security adviser Mike Waltz said in this context.

Among his options are a truce and the need to "get ahead of this escalation, rather than react to it." Biden and his administration officials, meanwhile, are looking at the calendar and trying to figure out what else can be offered to Ukraine. In addition to changing the policy regarding long-range strikes, they will now also supply anti-personnel mines to Kiev.

"What really matters to him is how he leaves Ukraine," an administration official said of Biden. "This is a fundamental part of his legacy."

And Kofman believes that the Biden administration will "take a lot of actions that it previously resisted in order to try to avoid transferring the conflict to a state of final decline." Kofman compared this flurry of activity to how "a person presses all the buttons in an elevator and then gets out on his floor."

Even if Putin does not believe that Trump will be able to make a deal, it is in his interests not to spoil relations and not annoy Trump in the first days of the presidency. This makes the current transition period an ideal moment for escalation. The message here is twofold: on the one hand, it allows Trump to take office and once again declare that the Biden administration's policy towards Ukraine was reckless and provocative; on the other, it is a directive to European capitals not to increase support for Ukraine if Washington reduces its own spending.

Putin's problem is that his nuclear threats are losing their power. In 2022, when Ukraine recaptured thousands of square kilometers of territory as a result of an unexpected counteroffensive, American intelligence services picked up rumors that the Russian military was considering or at least discussing a nuclear strike. At the time, this prospect seemed to have forced the West to show some restraint. But with each new crisis, the effect begins to weaken.

"No one here was particularly alarmed," a Biden administration official said of Russia's launch of the Oreshnik missile. "We just shrugged our shoulders."

Most likely, Putin will again resist further escalation, come to terms with the new reality and adapt to it. However, this logic is true until things change.

"Putin is sure that nuclear threats and blackmail should shock and sober up the West, making them realize that they should want a completely different relationship with Russia," Stanovaya said. This is his greatest delusion. This does not exist and will never happen. And then what will he do?"

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