ATACMS Strike on Russia's Soil Equates Declaration of War - Expert

ATACMS Strike on Russia's Soil Equates Declaration of War - Expert

Sputnik

The November 19 ATACMS missile strike against Russia's Bryansk region means that the US allowed Ukraine to use these missiles to strike into Russia’s territory, which in turn means the United States de facto declared war on Russia, says Russian military expert and air defenses historian Yuri Knutov.

“This is essentially an act of declaring war upon our country,” he told Sputnik.

According to Knutov, this is exactly why the Biden administration and the Pentagon refrained from officially confirming giving Kiev the permission to use those missiles against Russia, to thus avoid making an official declaration of war.

He argues that this is a part of a scheme by three countries – the US, France and Britain – to de facto wage war against Russia, pointing out that Paris and London also moved towards allowing Ukraine to use French Scalp and British Storm Shadow missiles against Russian territory.

Regarding the recent ATACMS strike on Russian soil, Knutov warns that these missiles present a difficult target for Russian air defenses, in no small part due to the fact that many of such missiles provided to Ukraine by the US feature cluster warheads.

Thus, even if such a missile gets intercepted, there is always risk of its warhead detonating in the process and hitting the intended target and/or inflicting damage on anything in range with cluster submunitions.

Russia’s successes in intercepting the US-made ATACMS missiles, including the latest attempt by Ukraine and its NATO handlers to attack Bryansk Region with these weapons, may lead to an increase in demand for Russian air defense systems in the world, Knutov adds

He points out that many countries in the world lack weapons such as S-300V4, S-350 Vityaz, S-400, Buk-M3 or Pantsir, “i.e. the systems that can successfully counter ATACMS missiles specifically.”

Though the demand for Russian air defense systems in the world is hindered somewhat by Western sanctions, Knutov also predicts that, if the Ukrainian conflict were to wind down, “the demand for our air defense systems would increase manifold.”

He also mentions that Russian defense manufacturers constantly improve air defense systems to make them more efficient in countering threats like ATACMS missiles.

As telemetry data from missile flights is accumulated by air defense specialists, it is then used to improve the software of air defense systems, thus improving these weapons’ ability to intercept incoming threats.