Russia’s defense and foreign ministries have accused the United States of direct involvement in the Ukraine War due to the sharing of intelligence between Washington and Kiev.
The statements followed an interview with the British newspaper The Telegraph given by the deputy head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Vadim Skibitsky, in which he claims that the success of the use of long-distance rockets launched by the American systems Himars was due to the “excellent satellite imagery and real-time information”.
Since Ukraine does not have military satellites, it is enough to connect the dots. This is what the Russian Defense Department said in a statement on Tuesday: “All this proves beyond doubt that Washington, contrary to what the White House and the Pentagon say, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine.”
The tone was followed by the chancellery spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. “No further confirmation of direct US involvement in hostilities on the territory of Ukraine is necessary. The supply of weapons is accompanied not only by instructions on how to use them, but in this case they perform the function of snipers in their purest form,” he said. Is it over there.
Until now, President Vladimir Putin had accused the West of fomenting the conflict, and Zakharova’s boss, Chancellor Sergei Lavrov, had said in April that it was a “proxy war” against Russia.
The rise in tone coincides with the general intensification of tensions in the axis of the actors of the Cold War 2.0 between the USA and China, with the visit of the American Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan. The Kremlin, an ally of Beijing, condemned the move as an attempt to “destabilize the world”.
It’s rhetorical territory so far, but one that embeds security risks, at the limit leading to what UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday: “Humanity is one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
The alarmist tone stems from the fact that tensions between Russia and the US are at the highest level since the Cold War, and may be supported by the Chinese front of the crisis that is looming around the autonomous island that Beijing considers its own. If no one seeks real conflict, even for the perceived risk of a devastating nuclear Third World War, accidents happen.
Over the course of the Ukrainian War, the West upped its ante on militarizing Kiev, after President Joe Biden offered his colleague Volodymyr Zelensky exile at the dawn of hostilities. Billions of dollars worth of weapons have been shipped, and this week another $550 million package of defense equipment was announced by the Pentagon.
It includes 4 more Himars (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) launchers, bringing the total available to Kiev to 16. Moscow said on Tuesday it had already destroyed 6 of them, something possible but difficult to confirm.
Ukraine even ordered 100 of these launchers, but the number would threaten the American stockpile. The US had, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), 363 units of the model in 2021. Washington also provided rockets with a range of 80 km, while it has versions that reach 300 km.
Intelligence sharing is also clear. In April, Biden ordered defense officials to stop telling journalists the details of how this happens, precisely to avoid accusations of direct action. The president himself stated, at the beginning of the conflict, that he would not send troops to prevent a Third World War.
