Kirby is now saying a decision hasn’t been made on ATACMS yet.
View attachment 86031
Well... maybe these hot/cold announcements are telegraph signals to the wider Russian establishment that if you think you have it bad now, imagine if Ukraine had a good supply of ATACMS.
So maybe its not escalation worries. Maybe its a a slow boil of the Russian frog. I mean how to you effect regime change in Russia without an invasion? Maybe one way is to allow Russia to keep doubling down on their Ukrainian efforts. Allow them to dig themselves deeper and deeper until something breaks and there is an internal change.
Unfortunately this also means lost Ukrainian lives. And Russian lives. This sucks, but the current establishment in Russia have shown again and again that they can't be trusted. Its a failed state. A festering sore on the border of Europe who has been willing to kill outside its borders, interfere with elections and enable corruption and chaos where ever they see an opportunity. Just look at what they are doing in Africa.
I don't know if the 'slow boil' is true. I'm sure the conversations have been done in exploring hypothetical scenarios and working the terrible calculus.
In the end Russia is not just a Ukrainian problem. They are a global problem.