President Joe Biden's new decisions regarding military aid to Ukraine and Russia's use of its nuclear arsenal are unlikely to significantly alter the course of the war, as noted by The New Yorker.
Specifically, the article points out doubts about whether Ukraine's use of ATACMS and other long-range missiles to strike targets within Russia will greatly affect the dynamics of the conflict.
"It may slow down the Russians, but not fundamentally," said a Ukrainian military source. "You won't improve your position on the battlefield with missiles. You do that with infantry. And that’s where we have the greatest shortage."
Military analyst Michael Kofman from the Carnegie Endowment linked the current challenges faced by Ukrainian forces to "the fundamentals": "mobilization, training, establishing and managing new formations, command, and control."
However, the publication notes that the decision to allow Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes on Russia seems to have awakened Putin's fears about escalation. It also states that the supposed "red lines" drawn by Putin have been crossed so many times since 2022 that it is hard to determine what an actual "red line" would look like for him.
According to Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior researcher at the Carnegie Endowment’s Russia and Eurasia Program, this time could be different, especially considering the ballistic missile strike "Oreshnik" on Dnipro on November 21:
"For Putin, this is indeed a strategic turning point... With this decision, Ukraine becomes a staging ground for what Putin perceives as NATO strikes on Russian territory... The essence is that a new paradigm has begun... Putin presents two scenarios: one path leads to nuclear war, the other to peace on Russia's terms... Putin is convinced that nuclear threats and blackmail should shock the West, causing what he sees as a kind of sobering realization that they should want completely different relations with Russia... This is his great delusion."
The publication added that the problem for Putin is that his nuclear threats are losing their potency - with each passing crisis, the effect begins to "dissipate."
"People here were not that alarmed... We shrugged it off," a Biden administration representative said regarding Russia's launch of the "Oreshnik" missile.
All of this is happening in the context of a transition in the U.S. administration - in less than two months, Donald Trump will take office and may "quickly push Ukraine and Russia to start peace negotiations," The New Yorker reports.
"Even if Putin does not believe that Trump can strike a deal, it is still in his interest not to sour relations and not to irritate Trump in the early days of his presidency. This makes the current interregnum an ideal time for escalation," the article states.
However, it is suggested that Putin will likely resist further escalation again and instead "absorb the new reality and adapt."
Strikes on Russia with Western Missiles - Relevant
As reported by UNIAN, on November 25, the White House officially acknowledged that it had eased restrictions on U.S. weapons strikes on Russian territory. It was reported that the authorization pertains to striking "specific types of targets" for "self-defense in case of immediate necessity."
Military experts doubt that this step will be of great significance. As Business Insider noted, while the West debated, Russia was given time to prepare, while Ukraine had to fend off attacks with its hands tied behind its back.