German parliament to vote on delivery of long-range air-borne missiles to Kiev
For those who are interested, the leading German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has posted on its website a link to live coverage of the debates taking place in the Bundestag this week over the Ukraine war and German arms deliveries to Kiev.
Bundestag debattiert über Ukrainekrieg und deutsche Waffenlieferungen
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A vote is expected next week and some observers speculate that the parliament will approve dispatch to Ukraine of the long-range, 500 km version of the Taurus cruise missiles despite the opposition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
As might be expected, the Russians have been following the debates very closely. On yesterday’s edition of the Evening with Vladimir Solovyov talk show, they posted a four or five minute video of one Bundestag deputy addressing the chamber earlier in the day. His anti-Russian rant was delivered with the same kind of insane intensity of Hitler at one of his mass rallies. He concluded with the remark that defeating Russia militarily must become Germany’s national purpose. If this sounds like a re-run of WWII with an ending more favorable to Berlin, then you can understand Solovyov’s switching from Russian to his mock guttural German when presenting the video clip.
This entire experience reminded me of the bits of European wisdom that I was hand-fed by my Italian colleague in ITT Europe soon after my move to Brussels from New York in 1980. Contradicting the prejudices of Americans and the Anglo-Saxons, Luigi insisted that Italians are the most realistic-minded people on the Continent , whereas the Germans are the most Romantic, meaning hot-headed. He thought he knew this from personal experience, since he was married to a German lady at the time.
Today’s edition of the Russian state television talk show and news wrap 60 Minutes featured a senior military expert who is often a panelist on their program discussing the reasons why the Germans may indeed be ready to ship their long-range Taurus to Kiev and what escalatory effect this will have on the war.
As he sees it, the decision in favor of delivering the Taurus is that the Biden administration is saying behind closed doors that it is ready to ship to Ukraine its 500 km version of Himars. The difference between the two missile systems is that Himars is ground launched from an artillery rocket system while Taurus is air launched. In practical terms, given the devastation that the Russians have inflicted on most every military air field in Ukraine and given the drastically diminished fleet of suitable jets owned by the Ukrainians today, the launch vehicles for Taurus might have to be F-16s or other planes based in Romania or another NATO country, which becomes a very risky proposition for reasons we will discuss below. But in terms of threats that both long range missiles present to Russia, the expert left no doubt that these are real and unacceptable.
Yes, Russia’s air defense systems are very effective. Perhaps 90% of incoming missiles of this performance quality are shot down or otherwise disarmed. But that still leaves 10% which will inevitably make their way to targets within the Russian Federation heartland and cause vast damage. They cannot reach Moscow, but they certainly can destroy the Crimea bridge, for example. This threat will exist even if the numbers of such missiles delivered to Ukraine are rather limited, for example, a total of 100 units.
For these reasons, if the United States and Germany do indeed opt to send such long-range missiles to Ukraine, the expert believes that Russia will have to abandon its hitherto ‘humane’ conduct of the war and become similarly vicious. Specifically, he is recommending Russian missiles targeting the Rada (parliament) building in Kiev, leveling it to the ground, the Ukrainian central bank and other decision making centers. This would be the first response but we can easily imagine the Russians proceeding to the escalation that has been mentioned publicly in past weeks, namely striking the factories producing Taurus and perhaps even the Himars wherever they are. NATO military targets would no longer be off limits.
Would this take us closer to WWIII? Of course, it would. But do take note as to which side, Russia or NATO, will be taking us across the River Styx to hell.
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As an historian by training, I always look for contradictory causal factors. In the given instance, they are today present aplenty and there is no need to end this essay on the deeply pessimistic note set out above.
The hopeful signs come from the growing awareness of military officials, politicians and even some media outlets in the West that the struggle of Ukraine against Russia is a hopeless cause, as demonstrated by the major Russian victory in Avdeevka and the Russian advances on the ground at other parts of the 1200 line of contact.
I put in this context the following amazing remarks by Donald Trump during a campaign talk yesterday. Said Trump: “Russia defeated Napoleon. Russia defeated Hitler. Russia has a military machine.” For those who have been nodding off for the past decade or so, Trump just said what no other American or European politician has admitted over that decade: namely that Russia defeated Hitler, not the Americans by their Normandy landing. If you are a school kid in Belgium, you only hear about Normandy and I imagine the same is true in schools across the Continent and in the U.S. of A. Who put this bee in Trump’s bonnet, I cannot say, but the fellow or gal deserves a medal.
Meanwhile, it is no secret that Zelensky is coming under intense challenges at home, and even within his Servant of the People group of Rada deputies.
Zelensky has cancelled the constitutionally mandated presidential elections in April and, and none other than his predecessor as president Piotr Poroshenko publicly asserted a day ago that Zelensky will have lost his right to hold office after 31 March. With the dismissal of General Zaluzhny as chief of the armies, Zelensky now bears on his own shoulders the shame and disgrace of defeat at Avdeevka and of the further territorial losses that are sure to follow in the days ahead.
For these reasons, it is entirely conceivable that with or without any further deliveries of money and weapons to Kiev the government will fall and whoever takes charge will be empowered to enter into talks with the Russians over capitulation.
Should that happen in April or May, the preconditions will be set for a possibly dramatic shift away from the Center Right European Peoples Party and Center Left Socialists and Democrats in elections to the European parliament in June. These are the parties that have turned the European parliament into a rubber stamp of Cold War ideologists.
Perhaps this hopeful view of developments in the coming several months is too good to be true. But absolutely no one can say with certainty, so why not hazard a guess.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024