There has been much reporting of Ukraine’s aerial attack on Russia over recent days that struck as far as Tatarstan. Western media has been quick to point out the use of western ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles in these attacks and six of each appear to have been used.
What does this all mean?
As talk increases of a possible meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin to discuss ending the war, Volodymyr Zelensky is grasping for a Pearl Harbour moment. Specifically, he wants to provoke Russia into a retaliatory strike against NATO that would be so strategically damaging that NATO would be drawn into Ukraine’s war with Russia.
In that regard, Zelensky is trying to position himself as a modern-day Winston Churchill.
Churchill famously said in a radio broadcast on 9 February 1941 addressing President Roosevelt, ‘Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.’
In April 2024, Zelensky said, ‘We will have a chance for victory if Ukraine really gets the weapon system which we need.’ He has used a different form of the same Churchillian entreaty several times.
In truth, Churchill knew that Britain could only defeat Nazi Germany in western Europe with the industrial might of the United States. So too, Zelensky has always wanted a more direct NATO role in the war, because it has always been clear that Ukraine cannot defeat Russia on its own.
History will record that the outcome of World War II was sealed by events far from Europe, but rather in the Pacific, namely the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, on 7 December 1941. That so enraged the United States that they had no choice but to enter the war.
By attacking targets deep inside of Russia using western supplied weapons, Zelensky’s gamble is that Russia will retaliate by striking a significant NATO target inside of Europe.
Hellbound and Down 