By Germán Ferrás Álvarez

Chief Correspondent in Russia

The secret transfer of US long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine threatens the security of the Crimean peninsula and other regions of Russia, while hindering a possible negotiated solution to the Moscow-Kiev conflict.

Once again the Americans lied, saying that the supply of these ATACMS rockets would be part of the aid package recently approved by Congress and President Joe Biden, because they arrived on Ukrainian territory more than a month ago, said Ukrainian political scientist Vladimir Skachko.

According to the expert, the supply of these weapons was discussed at the end of January during a visit to Kiev by the then Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland.

The political scientist recalled that after the visit, made shortly before she resigned from her post, Nuland stated that Russia «will have pleasant surprises», and these surprises could well be attacks against industrial and social infrastructure on the territory of the Slavic giant.

«President Vladimir Zelensky’s office tends to boast of its achievements in begging the West for weapons. However, we should not be surprised that in the case of ATACMS in Kiev they asked for secrecy,» Skachko said.

He attributes this to the fact that the Ukrainian leadership, together with US officials and instructors, developed an action plan for the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Among these actions would be a strike on the Kerch bridge in Crimea, which could be a target, because the head of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry’s General Intelligence Directorate, Kirill Budanov, has repeatedly spoken of his intention to destroy it.

MORE WEAPONS AGAINST RUSSIA

To implement these plans, Kiev’s military needs adequate weapons, which is why the delivery of ATACMS was decided, Skachko admits.

He also emphasised that, if the West is discussing the transfer of weapons to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, this almost certainly means that they are already in Ukraine and, in all likelihood, are being used.

He then recalled the cases of cluster bombs, Leopard armoured vehicles, Abrahams, Caesar self-propelled howitzers, Storm Shadows missiles, Himars multiple launchers, and Patriots systems, among others.

At the same time, the White House is trying to swim and save its own skin and claims that ATACMS will only be used «within the sovereign territory of Ukraine», as a way for Washington to avoid retaliation from Moscow.

Secondly, they pretend to be «democrats» and also try to convince the world that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are waging war, by all the rules.

But behind this is their conviction that all means are good in the fight against Russia, the political scientist said.

At the same time, statements circulating in the Western press about the failures of the Ukrainian army and Ukraine’s possible future territorial losses and military assistance to Kiev fit well into the overall picture.

With one hand, the US is patching up in case of an inevitable defeat, and with the other, it is trying to salvage the situation somehow, relying on chance, Skachko explained.

It finally emerged from the British news agency Reuters, which quoted US officials, that the United States secretly transferred long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine in March. The information was later confirmed by Pentagon spokesman Garron Garn.

In February, President Biden ordered his team to provide Kiev with a significant number of ATACMS missiles for use on sovereign Ukrainian territory. This deployment began in March, said national security adviser Jake Sullivan.

He did not indicate the exact number of missiles transferred, because the transfer of ATACMS should only take place as part of the $61 billion aid package.

At the same time, the Ukrainian military has already used these missiles to attack Russian targets, as it did in the early hours of 17 April.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the transfer of ATACMS to Ukraine for use «within the sovereign territory of Ukraine» was a smokescreen for the hype of holding a peace conference in Switzerland under the Zelensky formula to deceive the world.

The Russian Ministry of Defence has meanwhile recalled that this delivery will not change the course of events, the ATACMS will also be shot down, and Moscow will continue its operations until it achieves its goals of demilitarising and denazifying Ukraine.