Escalating the War with Russia - How the Outgoing Biden Administration Could Hobble Donald Trump

An op-ed piece by Ivan Dunaevsky in the Russian newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, a newspaper published by the Government of Russia, provides us with some interesting viewpoints from the Russian government on the soon-to-be extinct Biden Administration's decision to allow its ATACMS longer range missiles to be used by the Ukrainians to send a "message" further into the Russian fatherland , in particular, how this might impact the incoming Trump Administration.

  

Here is a key quote from this article with my bolds:

"Hobble the successor:

 

In fact, it is expected that Biden will look for ways to escalate the Ukrainian crisis at the end of his term. The purpose of the rumor about strikes on Russia and the most possible solution to this issue is succinctly reflected in the headline of the CNN article: "Biden has raised the stakes in the conflict that Trump will inherit. It is a provocative move with special symbolism."

 

Although US President-elect Donald Trump will not take office until January 20, 2025, his election victory has already had a noticeable impact on the tone of the media noise on the Ukrainian crisis. And this is not only a flurry of comments from journalists and experts about what his return to the White House means for Ukraine, but also numerous statements from politicians from different countries, most of which are about the prospects for a peaceful settlement. Trump himself promised to resolve the crisis even before his inauguration, and a number of his appointees to key positions have previously criticized aid to Ukraine. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently even allowed himself to break the taboo that has been tacitly in effect in the West and call the Russian president .

  

Biden, apparently, cannot come to terms with this, thereby increasingly openly demonstrating that the Ukrainian crisis is very much his personal creation. He set himself the goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and invested in it, as the Pentagon recently calculated, not only about 180 billion dollars, but also all his political weight, forcing NATO allies to follow him....

 

Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that in the remaining weeks he will try to complicate the possible implementation of Trump's plans. After Trump's victory, the White House stated that by the end of his term they would hastily spend the last 6 billion dollars that Congress had previously allocated for these purposes on weapons for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Other solutions to escalate the situation are also possible, including those discussed in the American media."

 

If, indeed, the Biden Administration does allow or encourage the use of its medium-range missiles to attack the Russian heartland and Russian President Vladimir Putin does act on his "NATO crossing the red line" mantra, the world could well be headed for a major conflict between two superpowers all because the outgoing Administration wants to hobble the incoming one.  We can only hope that Putin will hold off on any response should Ukraine decide to use America's supersonic ballistic missiles with the hope that saner heads will prevail in the next Administration and put a quick end to this losing proposition.