Trump has reached the same conclusion as Putin: Ukraine’s launch of ATACMS missiles has been a colossal mistake. The Ukrainian people are paying the price. From Simplicius at simplicius76.substack.com:
Last friday Russia again launched a series of devastating energy grid attacks, proving once more that the latest campaign is in fact a systematic one to disable Ukraine’s grid rather than reflexive retaliation:
The strikes were followed by immediate reports that as much as 70% of Ukraine was without power, at least temporarily. It seems with each strike the system is buckling but it’s uncertain if it can or will ever fully ‘collapse’, nor if Russia even intends for it to do so—as opposed to bringing it just to the brink.
Despite claims Gerasimov had spoken to head of Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Brown and that ATACMS strikes subsequently immediately stopped on Russian territory, Ukraine in fact launched another ATACMS strike on Taganrog, between Mariupol and Rostov. Perhaps there’s chance Gerasimov’s warning really did result in a moratorium but Zelensky decided to ‘test the limits’ of both sides’ red lines. After all, the target (geolocation: 47.23737, 38.86234) is mere kilometers from the Ukrainian border and just ‘barely’ constitutes ‘Russian territory’. Why waste a “long range” ATACMS to strike at such a shallow depth unless you were hoping to sit on two chairs and cause a provocation without angering your ‘partners’ too much?
