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Russia's 'underlying' message to Ukraine: 'You're not going to win this conflict, just give in'
FRANCE 24 English
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11/21/2024
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00:00
Ukraine has accused Russia of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at the
00:05
city of Dnipro. International experts have not confirmed the Ukrainian claim,
00:11
but if verified it would mark a significant escalation in the conflict. Such weapons have
00:16
never been used before in the context of a war. They are designed to deliver nuclear strikes,
00:23
although this missile was fired without a nuclear warhead.
00:27
Reporting from Kyiv, here's our Ukraine correspondent, Gulliver Craig.
00:58
Ukraine has accused Russia of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile at the city of
01:01
Dnipro. International experts have not confirmed the Ukrainian claim, but if verified it would mark
01:04
a significant escalation in the conflict. Such weapons have never been used before in the context
01:07
of a war. They are designed to deliver nuclear strikes, although this missile was fired without
01:10
a nuclear warhead. International experts have not confirmed the Ukrainian claim, but if verified it
01:13
would mark a significant escalation in the conflict. International experts have not confirmed
01:15
the Ukrainian claim, but if verified it would mark a significant escalation in the conflict.
01:28
Hits on industrial sites. Another thing that I think is worth stressing is that while the Russians
01:34
have said about the storm shadow missiles that apparently were fired yesterday by Ukraine onto
01:39
Russia's Kursk region, the Russians have said they shot down two of them. It sounds very much
01:44
from the video that I've seen from the town where, or near where they hit, that 12 missiles were
01:50
fired. And I think it does seem like the majority of those storm shadows were not intercepted by
01:55
the Russians. That was Gulliver Craig reporting for us from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. And let's
02:02
get a little more on this now. I'm pleased to say we're joined live by Gavin Hall. He's a teaching
02:07
fellow in international security at the University of Strathclyde. Good afternoon to you. Thanks for
02:12
joining us. Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be here. Look, we do need to tread cautiously here
02:18
because there has been no independent confirmation that this was an intercontinental ballistic
02:23
missile. However, no country in the world has fired such a missile in the context of a war before.
02:31
So if confirmed, surely this is really significant, isn't it?
02:36
Well, of course, you get the important caveat in straight away that obviously it's still
02:41
developing and unfolding, and we're not quite sure of what has and hasn't been fired yet.
02:47
If it is confirmed to be an ICBM, then it does raise a series of significant questions,
02:56
not least because if an ICBM is to be fired, obviously they can be detected,
03:02
then launched by the United States. And the general understanding is that if one was to be
03:09
fired, then the US should have been provided with 24 hours notice in advance. Otherwise,
03:15
the automatic assumption on America's behalf would be that it's a nuclear launch and it can
03:21
respond accordingly. If that notification has been made, then it raises some issues as to whether
03:28
there was any warning given from the Americans to Ukraine. If there wasn't any notification,
03:37
then that tells us something about the nature of the US and Western allies and whether they
03:44
deliberately chose not to respond to what they would have assumed would have been a nuclear
03:49
launch, or it wasn't in fact an ICBM launch and therefore no notification was required at all.
03:57
What looks like it's relatively possible is these discussions around the RS-26 Rubez missile,
04:06
which meets the technical definition for being an ICBM as set out in the New START Treaty,
04:13
though it has the capability to also operate at more intermediate ranges, which is part of the
04:19
reason why Russia and the US eventually withdrew from the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty,
04:26
was because Russia was building weapons that had intermediate capability but effectively hiding it.
04:33
So the sort of reports coming out that, oh, it was an ICBM, it wasn't an ICBM,
04:39
get mixed up in the way that it could technically be, but could have been fired in a different
04:44
manner. Go ahead, finish your thought.
04:49
Yeah, I was just going to say, but overall, an ICBM being launched in a conventional capacity,
04:55
yes, obviously it raises some of the fears and a potential upping of the stakes, but it shouldn't,
05:02
I don't think, automatically seem to be making the conflict inherently more dangerous.
05:07
It's the responses and how the escalation cycle gets managed from here out that's the
05:12
real challenge rather than the actual specific weapon itself.
05:16
It does come, though, at a sort of interesting moment, if I can put it like that, in the war.
05:21
I mean, it was only earlier on this week that Russia updated its nuclear doctrine. There've
05:27
been plenty more threats from Moscow towards Ukraine, towards Western allies as well.
05:33
What kind of message do you think Russia is trying to send if indeed this is confirmed to be an ICBM?
05:42
Well, the big message that Russia is trying to reconfirm is really to try and re-establish
05:49
deterrence, i.e. trying to persuade Ukraine and its allies not to be targeting onto Russian soil,
05:58
especially. Quite where everything goes from here and what level of response is actually
06:08
available to Ukraine and its allies is a lot more questionable. They've already effectively
06:16
unleashed their biggest response, which is the allowance of Storm Shadow and Atacams and things
06:24
to be fired directly into Ukraine. What other options they have to
06:31
reassert their authority in deterrence becomes a lot less clear.
06:38
What where the issue creates a degree of confusion, if you like, is that how
06:47
the impact, the potential impact of this weapon being launched. You don't just have to have a
06:54
ICBM or a similar type of weapon to be able to carry a nuclear warhead. These can be fit onto
07:01
cruise missiles and a variety of other things. However, the traditional understanding of an
07:05
ICBM is that these are used solely for nuclear launch. So by choosing, if that is the case,
07:14
to use an ICBM to launch a conventional weapon creates the situation whereby Ukraine and its
07:21
allies, particularly the United States, could no longer be sure whether an ICBM launch is
07:27
in fact a nuclear launch, which has a substantive impact on the whole concept and notion of
07:34
deterrence. That's going to be the big challenge going forward is how an adaptation to this new
07:42
scenario can be made. Just a final thought from you, you touched on the challenges for Ukraine
07:49
now when it comes to a response given the weaponry that it's already using against Russia
07:56
on Russian soil. Do you suspect that we will see in the days and weeks ahead Ukraine using more of
08:04
this American and now we understand British weaponry deep inside Russia? Yeah, there's
08:12
certainly no reason for them not to be using these weapons. They have them. They've been
08:18
wanting authorization to use them for several months. That's now been granted. So I think all
08:25
their targeting is on the equation. But one of the things to note about this overnight attack by
08:32
Russia on Ukraine and to Dnipro is that it's reported to be launched for the Astrakhan region,
08:38
which is at the northern end of the Caspian Sea. We should put the location around 800 kilometers
08:44
away from Dnipro, which is sitting outside of the range of the Storm Shadow and Atacams missiles,
08:51
which are about a 300 kilometer range. Therefore, Russia is also sending the message, even if you
08:57
can shoot your nice Western weapons that you've got, we can still fire things at you that you
09:03
can't touch. So you need to be playing ball here and we can then potentially see forward. You're
09:12
not going to win this conflict. You should give in and give us what we want is the kind of
09:17
underlying message I think is behind all of this. Gavin Hall, good to get your analysis. Thanks very
09:24
much indeed, sir. Thank you.
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