A question of missiles, first of all. The ones that Kiev demands from the US and EU but that the latter, due to whims or political reluctance that often have little to do with pacifism and military strategy, grant drop by drop. And then a question of authorization for the use of those same missiles. Yes, exactly. Because, not being Ukrainian property, the Kiev government must respect the binding contracts stipulated with Western suppliers, in some cases even before the war. Contracts that, for example, prevent the Ukrainian armed forces from hitting targets beyond the border (read Russia), which are therefore often forced to manufacture homemade and “creative” kamikaze drones (lately, they have brought out a series made of wooden parts to be assembled) to be able to hit enemy lines.
In the meantime, however, some progress has been made on the bureaucratic impasse: with a resolution, although not binding – which comes, not coincidentally, on the eve of the first trip to Kiev of the newly elected Ursula von der Leyen, confirmed as President of the European Commission – the European Parliament has voted in favor of lifting the current restrictions on the use of missiles by Kiev. The legislative body in Brussels (which legislates together with the Commission) has established that individual EU countries should grant new permits to attack Moscow where it does the most harm.
An incentive in this direction also comes from the major blow carried out last night by the Ukrainian air force in Toropets, in the Russian region of Tver. There Kiev has just destroyed one of the most important depots in the entire Russian Federation, where about 30 thousand tons of ammunition were stored, including high-precision ballistic weapons: such as the infamous Iskander ballistic missiles and the most advanced air defense systems of the Russian war industry, the S-300 and S-400, in addition to the classic Grad systems and the new North Korean Kn24.
A strategic move that goes in the direction of the rules of engagement demanded by Kiev’s allies: hit only military targets. No sooner said than done. The destruction of the Russian depot (which is located about 480 kilometers from the Ukrainian border), caused an explosion so powerful that it was registered as an earthquake of magnitude 2.8. An effective strike, therefore, and very important, which buys Kiev time and to stem the Kremlin’s steamroller, an infernal war machine that for months has been hammering continuously and indiscriminately both the front lines and the cities.
The strike demonstrates once again how effective and surgical Ukraine can be, if given the conditions to respond. All this spoils the plans of Vladimir Putin, who had asked his army to retake by October 1 the Kursk region invaded last August by several mechanized and airborne brigades of Kiev, which had surprisingly broken through the border at Sudzha, 400 miles southwest of Moscow, catching the Russians completely unprepared.
Now that those weapons have also gone up in smoke, the Kremlin will hardly be able to respect the timetable that President Putin wanted to seal the border. Nor will Moscow be able to continue to “blindly” bomb the Ukrainian cities closest to the EU borders, such as Odessa and Lviv, targeted by Russian artillery more in retaliation than for any real strategic interest (unless one wants to argue that terrorizing and exterminating the civilian population with rains of missiles is a precise strategy).
The mood in the Kremlin palaces, in fact, is not the best. Much more than something has gone wrong: first of all the anti-aircraft guns, but also the military engineering. In 2018, the then Russian Deputy Defense Minister Dmitry Bulgakov, speaking precisely about the large warehouse that exploded in Toropets, in the Tver region, had claimed that Moscow had built a “modern arsenal for the safe storage of missiles, ammunition and explosives equipped with advanced concrete warehouses, designed to withstand missile attacks and nuclear explosions”.
Evidently it wasn’t true: a simple drone attack was enough to pulverize it, along with the credibility and arrogance of the Russian military command. Who, humiliated, found themselves forced to reiterate the usual nuclear threat to which the Kremlin spokesmen have now accustomed us as a conditioned reflex to every defeat suffered.
The reality of the facts shows that Kiev has no intention of unleashing a nuclear holocaust, while it is fully aware of the military targets to be hit in Russia. And in fact it has provided a detailed list to the USA and the United Kingdom, where they appear: command centers for logistics movement, fuel and weapons depots, areas of concentration of troops. By insisting on this path and with the cover of the allies, the Ukrainian high command is convinced that it can force Moscow to sit at the negotiating table that President Zelensky is setting up with the international sherpas (a first step is expected in November).
Now, it may also be true, as the Pentagon’s John F. Kirby quotes Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, that “the assessment that you can just give the Ukrainians ATACMS and tell them they’ll be able to hit most of the Russian aircraft and air bases that are being used to hit them is not true, it’s a misunderstanding” because Russia has already moved its glide bombs beyond the range of the ATACMS missiles.
Yet even if lifting restrictions on weapons supplies to Ukraine would not change the outcome of the war, it would still give Kiev precious time to catch its breath and reduce the threat of hypothetical Russian attacks in the Baltic states and Poland, and of reprisals well beyond the Eastern front (“a Sarmat missile can reach Strasbourg in 3 minutes” threatened the Kremlin just yesterday).
That is, if Kiev could exploit Western weapons to ensure greater air defense and destroy other weapons production and storage facilities, wouldn’t this go in the direction of de-escalation also desired by Washington and Brussels? According to the Italian parties Lega, Movimento 5 Stelle and the Alliance of the Greens and the Left – who voted against the resolution of the Strasbourg Chamber – this is not the case. And yet Italy will also fall in line with the community decisions, given that the military support for Ukraine by our government is not in question. But, as usual, the Italian parties still prove to be the most confused and embarrassed in Europe on the issue, demonstrating how our country – even when faced with a vital and international issue such as a war – always reduces everything to electoral gain.
