However, the Russian army continues its advance relentlessly in eastern Ukraine, claiming on Monday the capture of a new village south of Pokrovsk, a key logistical node for the Ukrainian forces. According to an analysis using data from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces took 60 km² additional this weekend, i.e. 458 km² since the beginning of November. The October record (610 km²) will therefore probably be beaten, and probably largely, in accordance with the acceleration of Russian advances since this summer.
“If we look coldly at the balance of power, the advantage is on the Russian side. »
“Putin is not yet at the limits of Donbass. As long as he is not there, he will continue to push,” predicts a senior French military official. “If we look coldly at the balance of power, the advantage is on the Russian side.” Mick Ryan, a former Australian general, agrees that “the news from eastern Ukraine continues to be grim.” For him, “while no major breakthrough is expected, the Russians have been able to maintain pressure on the Ukrainians for a year now, which is revealing.”
Deep strikes on the Russian side will certainly, in theory, force Moscow to back down. But “these missiles have already been used for at least a year and a half (in Crimea and Donbass, editor’s note). Nothing will change,” minimizes Alexander Khramtchikhin, a Russian military analyst based in Moscow. “You cannot use them directly from the front line, because the launchers would not last long,” he adds, emphasizing their “very limited number”. No reliable estimate is available on this point.
Russian S-400s opposite
“The Russians have long placed their most critical resources out of range of the ATACMS (missile),” adds Stephen Biddle, professor of international affairs at the American University of Columbia, for AFPTV. “I don’t think this is decisive in the course of the war.”
The ATACMS, with a range of 300 km, carry either a single charge or cluster bombs which disperse multiple small explosives over the territory, explain analysts from Janes, a private British intelligence company. Ukraine should use them against “Russian logistical bases to slow down supplies, or command nodes”, they believe, while also emphasizing that Moscow's anticipations could make this benefit “less important than initially expected”.
kyiv, in fact, has been asking for this green light for a long time. And, as with heavy tanks, fighter planes or other major equipment, it only won its case after incessant lobbying.
Message to Beijing and Pyongyang
ATACMS, like each weapon taken separately, do not constitute a panacea. They are fast and very mobile, but the Russian S-400 air defense system “can counter them,” assure Janes analysts.
Several experts implicitly describe an American decision that is primarily political, with an internal and foreign vocation, while the military situation and the Western exhaustion could force kyiv, from 2025, to negotiate in an unfavorable position.
Domestically, Donald Trump will regain the keys to the White House in two months and can backtrack. “It is certain that before January 20, the administration wants to reach Ukraine all the aid currently authorized by Congress,” estimates Stephen Biddle. But the decision “does not constrain the Trump administration in any way.”
And on the external level, these missiles respond to North Korea's sending of thousands of soldiers to Moscow's side. “I don’t think the Biden administration wants them to believe that this is free,” continues the military historian. “I fear that (Washington) is placing more emphasis on sending messages to China and North Korea than on substantially increasing Ukrainian strike capabilities,” notes Ivan Klyszcz of the International Defense Center and Security (ICDS) in Estonia. Will the United States “allow kyiv to strike targets in Russia unrelated to North Korea?” […] This seems ambiguous to me,” he notes.
“Some argue that this authorization can serve as a bargaining chip” when discussing with Moscow, he adds. But here again, the future is illegible. “Trump remains as unpredictable as ever.”
In brief
• Missile firing on Russian soil: an “option” for France. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot reaffirmed Monday that the firing of French missiles by Ukrainian forces on Russian soil remained “an option”. In May, the French President estimated that the Ukrainians should be able to strike Russia with Western missiles. “We must allow them to neutralize the military sites from which the missiles are fired […]the military sites from which Ukraine is attacked,” he said. “But we must not allow other targets in Russia and obviously civilian capabilities to be hit,” he immediately added.
• Zelensky on hot spots. The Ukrainian President toured the eastern front on Monday, first visiting his troops in Pokrovsk, currently the main target of Russian attacks in Donbass. He then went to another hot spot, Kupiansk, a city that the Russians had occupied in 2022 and which they briefly entered last week.
• Sweden and Finland encourage their residents to prepare for war. Sweden has begun sending out some five million brochures to its residents, encouraging them to prepare for the possibility of war. Neighboring Finland has meanwhile launched a website with similar preparation advice. The two countries abandoned decades of military non-alignment and joined NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• 4,000 German drones to Ukraine. Germany, which refuses the delivery of long-range missiles requested by kyiv, will provide 4,000 sophisticated drones to Ukraine in difficulty against Russia, the Minister of Defense announced on Monday. “These are drones controlled by artificial intelligence (AI) and which can disable the electronic defenses of opposing drones,” explained Minister Boris Pistorius. These 4,000 units, “deliverable very quickly” would be able to act over a range of “30, 40 km” in Russian territory and “attack combat posts, logistical nodes and others”.
• Break of a telecoms cable linking Finland to Germany. A 1,172 kilometer submarine telecommunications cable linking Finland to Germany has broken for reasons still unknown, the Finnish technology group Cinia announced on Monday. “For the moment, it is not possible to assess the reason for the cable break, but this type of break does not occur in these waters without external impact,” the group added to journalists.
