Latest war between Ukraine and Russia: Biden allows Zelensky to use US long-range missiles against Russia

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are seriously underestimating what the other is capable of, and that carries far-reaching risks for Ukraine over Russia’s invasion, Britain’s former spy chief and ex-diplomat have told The Independent.

Trump’s US election victory last week has canceled Europe’s plan to support Kiev for as long as it takes. His focus is on ending the war quickly, even if that means potentially pressuring Kiev to cede territory currently occupied by Russia.

In a secret factory in central Russia, engineers are making hundreds of decoy drones designed to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses as they try to protect against a terrifying new weapon.

The facility in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone recently began carving out thermobaric drones along with the decoys, an Associated Press investigation has found. The thermobaric warheads create a vortex of high pressure and heat that can penetrate thick walls. They suck up all the oxygen in their path and have a fearsome reputation for the damage inflicted even outside the original blast site: collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage.

Joe Biden witnessed the drought’s devastation up close as the first sitting US president to visit the Amazon rainforest.

The massive Amazon region, roughly the size of Australia, stores vast amounts of the world’s carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that drives climate change.

But development is rapidly depleting the world’s largest tropical rainforest and rivers are drying up. Biden said the fight against climate change has been a defining cause of his presidency — he has pushed for cleaner air, water and energy, including legislation that marked the most significant federal investment in history to fight global warming.

But he is handing the nation over to Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who is highly unlikely to prioritize the Amazon or anything related to climate change, which he has cast as a “hoax.”

Trump has vowed again to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, a global pact to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change, and he says he will cancel unused funds in energy efficiency legislation.

North Korea has supplied Russia with long-range missiles and artillery systems, a Ukrainian intelligence assessment has found, amid reports that Pyongyang has sent 12,000 of its troops to Moscow to fight Ukraine.

Pyongyang has delivered 50 domestically produced 170 mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240 mm multi-rocket systems, Financial Times reported with reference to the assessment.

Some of the weapons have been moved to the border region of Kursk, where Moscow has deployed 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops to retake the territory from Ukrainian troops. Russian forces are having difficulty pushing back Ukraine’s cross-border incursion on August 6.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that “missiles speak for themselves” and “such things are not announced”, following reports that Washington had authorized Kiev to carry out strikes deeper into Russia with US-made missiles.

Zelensky has called on the United States and Britain to agree to allow them to attack infrastructure such as airports that contribute to the barrage of missiles and drones that strike across Ukraine on an almost daily basis.

Washington’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with long-range US missiles could lead to World War III and will receive a swift response, Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the Russian upper house’s international affairs committee, said on Sunday, according to the newspaper. TASS news agency.

Earlier on Sunday, two US officials and a source familiar with the decision revealed the significant reversal of Washington’s policy in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

Sir Keir Starmer has “no plans” to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin as he said “we need to double” aid to Ukraine as the conflict nears its 1,000th mark. day.

The Prime Minister pledged that Ukraine was “at the top” of his agenda at this week’s G20 summit of world leaders, telling reporters that “there needs to be full support for as long as it takes”.

There have been concerns about the level of aid the US may continue to give Ukraine when President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House in January.

Earlier this week, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, spoke to Mr Putin in what was the Russian leader’s first publicly announced conversation with the sitting head of a major Western power in nearly two years.

Asked if he planned to make a similar call, Sir Keir said: “It’s a matter for Chancellor Scholz who he talks to. I have no plans to talk to Putin.”

Prominent Putin critic Sir Bill Browder said so The independent: “(Putin’s) psychology is one where he is provoked by weakness, not by strength, and the only way to deal with Russia is to put a boot on its neck.

“It’s all disgraceful as far as I can see. Good luck to him if he wants to go to war with Nato. He would lose that war in a matter of days.”

Vladimir Putin warned it would be an act of war back in September when reports emerged that Joe Biden was considering “working out” the possibility of US long-range missiles being used inside Russia. He told state media: “It would mean that Nato countries, the United States, European countries, are at war with Russia.

“If that is the case, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats we will face, taking into account the changing nature of the conflict.”

The first deep strikes are likely to be carried out using Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) rockets, which have a range of up to 190 miles (306 km), according to the sources.

ATACMS is a long-range guided missile that gives operational commanders the “instant firepower to win the deep battle”.

The missiles, manufactured by US global security and aerospace firm Lockheed Martin, carry a 500 lb (227 kg) class warhead.

The weapons are equipped with a specialized GPS system and have a maximum range of 300 km (about 190 miles) – although those supplied to Ukraine have a shorter range and carry cluster munitions.

When fired, the clusters open in midair, releasing hundreds of bombs instead of a single warhead.

The other missile being touted, the British/French-made Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG missile, has a much longer estimated range of up to 550 km (340 miles).