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      Trump allies attack Biden for allowing Ukraine to use US missiles inside Russia

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      Allies of the president-elect, Donald Trump, have lashed out angrily at Joe Biden for his decision to permit Ukraine to use long-range US missiles to launch attacks inside Russia for the first time, in what the Kremlin has termed an “escalation” in the war.Key Trump surrogates, including his son Donald Trump Jr, hardline congressional Republicans, and other backers have accused Biden of seeking to spark “world war three” before Trump’s presidential inauguration in January.“The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” wrote Donald Trump Jr on X, the social network formerly known as Twitter.Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, who was seen as a potential candidate for secretary of state, wrote: “No one anticipated that Joe Biden would ESCALATE the war in Ukraine during the transition period. This is as if he is launching a whole new war. Everything has changed now – all previous calculations are null and void.”Other Republicans to sound off included the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and the Utah senator Mike Lee, who said: “Joe Biden has just set the stage for World War III. Let’s all pray that it doesn’t come to this.”A state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, defended the decision during a press briefing on Monday, saying: “[The] American people elected Joe Biden to a four-year term, not to a term of three years and 10 months, and we will use every day of our term to pursue the foreign policy interests that we believe are in the interests of the American people.”Discussions had been ongoing for months between the White House, the state department and European allies on whether to allow strikes into Ukraine. Currently, the decision to allow limited strikes using the US-supplied Atacms missiles would permit the Ukrainian army to target Russian military infrastructure in the Kursk region where the US has said that more than 10,000 North Korean troops have joined Russian forces preparing a counter-offensive to force Ukrainian troops out of the region.The decision by the White House will set up a dilemma for the incoming administration on whether to immediately roll back the authorisation after Trump’s inauguration or retain it as a potential bargaining chip in the negotiations the president-elect has said he wants to hold in order to end the fighting.While Trump and his allies have broadly denounced increasing military support and financial aid for the Ukrainian government, analysts said it was unclear whether Trump would move immediately to repeal the decision regarding long-range missiles.“On the first day they could announce, ‘We are suspending this authorization pending a review of Ukraine policy,’” said Mark Cancian, a senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a thinktank based in Washington. “But that would engender a lot of criticism and revive all these stories about some deals with Putin.”He said it was not a foregone conclusion that Trump would immediately repeal the decision. “One is just the political cost isn’t worth the gain, but Trump’s also a deal-maker, and that would be to give away something without getting anything for it … to start off with a concession is just bad negotiating tactics.”The White House decision may also prompt European allies with similar restrictions on the use of their long-range missiles in Ukraine to follow suit. The UK is expected to supply Storm Shadow missiles for use by Ukraine on targets inside Russia following the Biden decision with Keir Starmer, the prime minister, saying at the G20 summit that the UK needed to “double down” on its support for Ukraine.Germany has maintained its position not to supply Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles, while the French president, Emmanuel Macron, had already said Paris was open to consider greenlighting the use of its missiles to strike on Russian soil.Theresa Fallon, the director of the Center for Russia Europe Asia Studies in Brussels, said that there were mixed reactions among European military officials, with some worried about the potential for an escalation, while others were “happy … that Ukraine could now use the equipment without one hand tied behind their back any more. But this decision came late, very late, [Ukraine] needs to be able to defend itself, and use this equipment for what it was designed to do. But we should keep in mind it is not going to be a game changer and more equipment is needed.”“I can’t predict what Trump will do,” she said. “But … once these things are in place, there is a momentum to continue to use them. It may be hard to put it back into the box. But on the other hand, if there is not a resupply of missiles then the use of them for targets in Russia will have run its course.” More

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      Joe Biden’s last-gasp missile decision is momentous for Ukraine – but Putin will retaliate | Simon Tisdall

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      US president Joe Biden’s last-gasp decision to permit Ukraine to fire western-made, long-range missiles at military targets deep inside Russian territory runs the risk of triggering a sharp increase in retaliatory sabotage, such as cyber and arson attacks on Britain and its European Nato partners.Vladimir Putin, who ordered the full-scale, illegal invasion of Ukraine 1,000 days ago tomorrow, has long warned that Kyiv’s expanded use of US-, British- and French-made missiles would be viewed by Moscow as an act of war by Nato, and could trigger catastrophic consequences. Now Putin’s bluff, if it is a bluff, is being called.Much the same may be said of Keir Starmer and the EU. A joint statement by G7 leaders, coinciding with the 1,000-day landmark, pledged “unwavering support for Ukraine for as long as it takes”. Starmer reiterated that commitment en route to this week’s G20 summit in Brazil. Exactly what it means in practice may soon be harshly tested.Biden’s decision is welcome, if overdue. Amid grinding Russian ground advances, EU feuding and Donald Trump’s unpropitious re-election, the war has reached a critical juncture, militarily and diplomatically. The outcome is in the balance as the scales momentarily tip towards more death and destruction, then back towards some form of Trump-imposed land-for-peace sell-out.Russia has the advantage at present. But Kyiv will not and must not give up.Biden was slow to give the missile go-ahead, despite months of pressure from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has argued, with good reason, that Ukraine is fighting with one hand tied behind its back. Russian airfields, military bases and command centres that are used to mount almost daily, lethal missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s cities and energy infrastructure are out of range.Biden’s tardiness was the product of an excessive caution that has seen the US drag its feet on supplying new weapons from the start. If Ukraine had been armed in 2022 with all the tanks, air-defence systems, missiles and fighter aircraft it has subsequently, belatedly been given, it might not be struggling as it is now.But his hesitation was reportedly reinforced by a recent classified US intelligence assessment. It warned that Putin could respond to the use of the US long-range army tactical missile system (Atacms), and the similarly capable Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles, AKA Scalp-EG, on Russian soil, with attacks on the US and its allies.Direct, overt Russian armed retaliation against European military bases or territory seems unlikely, although tensions with Poland and other “frontline” Nato countries are running high. Dark threats by Putin cronies such as former president Dmitry Medvedev about using nuclear weapons are dismissed as rhetorical fearmongering.Instead, the intelligence finding suggested, Russia may step up covert, deniable sabotage: cyber, infowar and arson attacks of the type it has undertaken in recent years. This would allow the Kremlin to impose a cost, especially on wavering Nato members such as Olaf Scholz’s Germany, while avoiding all-out east-west war.The GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and other state organs are said to have been tasked by Putin with preparing asymmetrical responses for exactly the circumstances that are now unfolding. The overall aim: to alarm and disrupt western societies and publics.The GRU is notorious in Britain for carrying out the non-Ukraine-related Salisbury poisonings in 2018. In March this year, it was linked to arson at a warehouse in east London supposedly used to supply Ukraine. Attacks on a factory in Poland and non-military targets in Latvia and Lithuania are also attributed to the GRU. In May, Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said 12 people had been arrested for beatings, arson and “acts of sabotage on commission from Russian intelligence services”.These may have been mere practice runs. Kaja Kallas, former prime minister of Estonia and newly nominated EU foreign policy chief, says Moscow is waging a “shadow war” on Europe. Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, warns that Russia may target energy producers and arms factories. Europe needed a coordinated approach, Kallas said. “How far do we let them go on our soil?”Nor is the threat confined to land. Last week, in the latest in a series of incidents, a Russian spy ship – officially classed as an “oceanographic research vessel” – was militarily escorted out of the Irish Sea. Its unexplained presence there and around UK coasts has renewed concerns about the security of critical undersea infrastructure, including pipelines and internet cables linking the UK, Ireland, Europe and the US.Described as the latest attempt to probe western defences and vulnerabilities, the incident followed an investigation in Nordic countries last year into suspected Russian state-led espionage ops. Spy ships disguised as fishing vessels were being used to plan future attacks on windfarms and communications cables in the North Sea, it said.However Russia responds – and the initial Kremlin reaction on Monday was wait-and-see – Biden’s decision challenges Ukraine and the European Nato allies, too. Having pressed so hard for so long, Zelenskyy must prove that the missiles make a difference. US officials are sceptical they can change the course of the war. EU officials in Brussels hope they will.What Biden appears to hope is that long-range strikes on North Korean troops newly deployed in Russia’s contested Kursk region will deter Pyongyang from further involvement. That seems improbable, too. Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s ostracised dictator, is Putin’s new best bro. He’s not noted for a caring attitude to human life.With Trump’s advisers threatening a de facto betrayal of Ukraine, Europe’s leaders, including Starmer, must put their money, lots of it, and their weapons where their mouths are – and help Zelenskyy maintain the fight, even without US hardware and financial backing, if need be.The problem is that unity of purpose, and resources, are lacking. Scholz broke with most of the EU last week when he phoned Putin for a chat. The chancellor (who continues to refuse to supply Germany’s Taurus long-range missiles to Kyiv) said he was pursuing peace. But it looked like weakness with snap elections brewing, and it angered other leaders. “No one will stop Putin with phone calls,” Tusk snarled. “Telephone diplomacy cannot replace real support from the whole west for Ukraine.”The “whole west” means France, too. But President Emmanuel Macron, having spoken frequently and passionately about the vital importance for Europe of defeating Russia, now appears to be temporising about actually letting Kyiv fire French missiles. Will Starmer give a green light, or will he also get cold feet?With Ukraine burning, Europe divided, and Biden two months away from oblivion, it’s little wonder that Putin, with a host of dirty tricks up his sleeve, thinks he’s winning the Ukraine missile crisis.

      Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s foreign affairs commentator More

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      What Are ATACMS, the U.S. Missiles That May Be Used Against Russia?

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      In a major policy shift, the Biden administration has authorized Ukraine to use the ballistic missiles within Russia.For the first time, the Biden administration has authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied ballistic missiles for attacks inside Russia, American officials say, marking a major policy shift.The missiles are known as the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS (pronounced “attack ’ems”). They are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops to support Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, according to American officials.Ukraine has been lobbying the United States for years to receive the authorization, which comes in the final months of the Biden administration. President-elect Donald J. Trump has said he will seek a quick end to the war in Ukraine.Here’s what you need to know about ATACMSWhat do these missiles do?Why did the U.S. wait?How will Ukraine use them?Has the U.S. used them in combat?What do these missiles do?ATACMS, made by Lockheed Martin, are short-range ballistic missiles that, depending on the model, can strike targets 190 miles away with a warhead containing about 375 pounds of explosives. Ballistic missiles fly much higher into the atmosphere than artillery rockets and many times farther, coming back to the ground at incredibly high speed because of gravity’s pull.They can be fired from the HIMARS mobile launchers that the United States has provided Ukraine, as well as from older M270 launchers sent from Britain and Germany.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How to survive the broligarchy: 20 lessons for the post-truth world | Carole Cadwalladr

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      1 When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Last week Donald Trump appointed a director of intelligence who spouts Russian propaganda, a Christian nationalist crusader as secretary of defence, and a secretary of health who is a vaccine sceptic. If Trump was seeking to destroy American democracy, the American state and American values, this is how he’d do it.2 Journalists are first, but everyone else is next. Trump has announced multibillion-dollar lawsuits against “the enemy camp”: newspapers and publishers. His proposed FBI director is on record as wanting to prosecute certain journalists. Journalists, publishers, writers, academics are always in the first wave. Doctors, teachers, accountants will be next. Authoritarianism is as predictable as a Swiss train. It’s already later than you think.3 To name is to understand. This is McMuskism: it’s McCarthyism on steroids, political persecution + Trump + Musk + Silicon Valley surveillance tools. It’s the dawn of a new age of political witch-hunts, where burning at the stake meets data harvesting and online mobs.4 If that sounds scary, it’s because that’s the plan.  Trump’s administration will be incompetent and reckless but individuals will be targeted, institutions will cower, organisations will crumble. Fast. The chilling will be real and immediate.5 You have more power than you think. We’re supposed to feel powerless. That’s the strategy. But we’re not. If you’re a US institution or organisation, form an emergency committee. Bring in experts. Learn from people who have lived under authoritarianism. Ask advice.6 Do not kiss the ring. Do not bend to power. Power will come to you, anyway. Don’t make it easy. Not everyone can stand and fight. But nobody needs to bend the knee until there’s an actual memo to that effect. WAIT FOR THE MEMO.7 Know who you are. This list is a homage to Yale historian, Timothy Snyder. His On Tyranny, published in 2017, is the essential guide to the age of authoritarianism. His first command, “Do not obey in advance”, is what has been ringing, like tinnitus, in my ears ever since the Washington Post refused to endorse Kamala Harris. In some weird celestial stroke of luck, he calls me as I’m writing this and I ask for his updated advice: “Know what you stand for and what you think is good.”8 Protect your private life. The broligarchy doesn’t want you to have one. Read Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: they need to know exactly who you are to sell you more shit. We’re now beyond that. Surveillance Authoritarianism is next. Watch The Lives of Others, the beautifully told film about surveillance in 80s east Berlin. Act as if you are now living in East Germany and Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp is the Stasi. It is.9 Throw up the Kool-Aid. You drank it. That’s OK. We all did. But now is the time to stick your fingers down your throat and get that sick tech bro poison out of your system. Phones were – still are – a magic portal into a psychedelic fun house of possibility. They’re also tracking and surveilling you even as you sleep while a Silicon Valley edgelord plots ways to tear up the federal government.10 Listen to women of colour. Everything bad that happened on the internet happened to them first. The history of technology is that it is only when it affects white men that it’s considered a problem. Look at how technology is already being used to profile and target immigrants. Know that you’re next.11 Think of your personal data as nude selfies. A veteran technology journalist told me this in 2017 and it’s never left me. My experience of “discovery” – handing over 40,000 emails, messages, documents to the legal team of the Brexit donor I’d investigated – left me paralysed and terrified. Think what a hostile legal team would make of your message history. This can and will happen.12 Don’t buy the bullshit. A Securities and Exchange judgment found Facebook had lied to two journalists – one of them was me – and Facebook agreed to pay a $100m penalty. If you are a journalist, refuse off the record briefings. Don’t chat on the phone; email. Refuse access interviews. Bullshit exclusives from Goebbels 2.0 will be a stain on your publication for ever.13 Even dickheads love their dogs. Find a way to connect to those you disagree with. “The obvious mistakes of those who find themselves in opposition are to break off relations with those who disagree with you,” texts Vera Krichevskaya, the co-founder of TV Rain, Russia’s last independent TV station. “You cannot allow anger and narrow your circle.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion14 Pay in cash. Ask yourself what an international drug trafficker would do, and do that. They’re not going to the dead drop by Uber or putting 20kg of crack cocaine on a credit card. In the broligarchy, every data point is a weapon. Download Signal, the encrypted messaging app. Turn on disappearing messages.15 Remember. Writer Rebecca Solnit, an essential US liberal voice, emails: “If they try to normalize, let us try to denormalize. Let us hold on to facts, truths, values, norms, arrangements that are going to be under siege. Let us not forget what happened and why.”16 Find allies in unlikely places. One of my most surprising sources of support during my trial(s) was hard-right Brexiter David Davis. Find threads of connection and work from there.17 There is such a thing as truth. There are facts and we can know them. From Tamsin Shaw, professor in philosophy at New York University: “‘Can the sceptic resist the tyrant?’ is one of the oldest questions in political philosophy. We can’t even fully recognise what tyranny is if we let the ruling powers get away with lying to us all.”18 Plan. Silicon Valley doesn’t think in four-year election cycles. Elon Musk isn’t worrying about the midterms. He’s thinking about flying a SpaceX rocket to Mars and raping and pillaging its rare earth minerals before anyone else can get there. We need a 30-year road map out of this.19 Take the piss. Humour is a weapon. Any man who feels the need to build a rocket is not overconfident about his masculinity. Work with that. More

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      Vladimir Shklyarov, Star Russian Ballet Dancer, Dies at 39

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      The Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, which announced the death, did not say how or where he died.Vladimir Shklyarov, one of the world’s premier male ballet dancers, died on Saturday night, according to the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, where he was a principal dancer.The theater did not say in its announcement how or where Mr. Shklyarov, 39, died.Russia’s Investigative Committee, a federal law enforcement agency, began an investigation into Mr. Shklyarov’s death, according to RIA Novosti, a state-run news agency. “A preliminary cause of death was an accident,” RIA Novosti quoted the Investigative Committee’s office in St. Petersburg as saying.Over a two-decade career, Mr. Shklyarov gained international acclaim, performing at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House in London and other prestigious theaters around the world.Born in Leningrad, Mr. Shkylarov graduated in 2003 from the Vaganova Ballet Academy, a famed institution with nearly 300 years of history. Its graduates include Natalia Makarova and Mikhail Baryshnikov.Mr. Shklyarov joined the Mariinsky directly out of school, and went on to perform in both contemporary and classical productions, including “Swan Lake,” “Don Quixote” and “Giselle.” He received multiple awards for his work, including the prestigious Léonide Massine International Prize in 2008. But the Mariinsky said that “the most precious for Vladimir” was receiving the title of an honored artist of Russia in 2020.Information about survivors was not immediately available. In 2012, Mr. Shklyarov married another dancer, Maria Shirinkina, who also performed with the Mariinsky, according to Russian news media.In a review of a performance during the company’s 2016 tour of the United States, a New York Times critic said, “The best moment came from Maria Shirinkina, supernaturally airborne, and Mr. Shklyarov, elegant and mournful, in a cobbled together extract from ‘Giselle.’ For a little while, they suggested another world.”A former ballerina, Irina Bartnovskaya, wrote on Telegram that Mr. Shklyarov had been at home, on painkillers and preparing for foot surgery before his death. She said that he went out to smoke onto “a very narrow balcony” and fell five stories in “a stupid, unbearable accident.”Her account could not be verified, but it echoed similar reports in Russian news outlets, including Fontanka, which quoted a Mariinsky Theater spokeswoman, Anna Kasatkina, as saying that he was on painkillers and expected to have surgery. More

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      Blinken Visits NATO Headquarters

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      The U.S. secretary of state met with European allies rattled by the American election results at a critical moment for Ukraine and the alliance.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited NATO headquarters in Brussels on Wednesday at what he called a “critical moment” for Ukraine and the U.S.-led military alliance, as Europe braces for the anticipated upheaval of a new Trump era in Washington.In a trip organized only after last week’s presidential election results made clear that U.S. policy will likely swing dramatically away from President Biden’s lock step support for NATO and Ukraine, Mr. Blinken met with alliance and European officials to help plan for a post-Biden future.Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House in January has deeply shaken Europe’s mainstream political leaders, thanks to his skepticism about the value of NATO, the cost of defending Ukraine, and the wisdom of isolating Russia and its president, Vladimir V. Putin.Once in office, Mr. Trump could move quickly to change U.S. policy on all three fronts — a shift that European leaders fear might leave their countries both less secure from Russian aggression and at an economic disadvantage.Mr. Blinken did not explicitly mention Mr. Trump or last week’s election in his public remarks after meetings at NATO headquarters. But an American leadership change with huge global import was the obvious subtext, as Mr. Blinken stressed the intrinsic value of the alliance.Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, addressed the elephant in the room before sitting down with Mr. Blinken at a Brussels hotel. He said that their meeting offered “an opportunity to coordinate steps” after the U.S. election, noting that Ukraine’s government was speaking “both with the president-elect and his team and also with the outgoing administration.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Once They Were Neocons. Now Trump’s Foreign Policy Picks Are All ‘America First.’

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      The Republican Party used to have a label for the kind of foreign policy hawk that President-elect Donald J. Trump named on Tuesday as his national security adviser and is considering as his secretary of state: neocons.But while they once were neoconservatives, over the past few years Representative Michael Waltz and Senator Marco Rubio, both of Florida, have gradually shifted their positions. Sounding less like former Vice President Dick Cheney or John R. Bolton, who served as Mr. Trump’s third national security adviser, they no longer talk about foreign interventions or the prospects of regime change. Instead, they speak the language of the “America First” movement, and fit more comfortably within Mr. Trump’s often erratic worldview, in which deal-making reigns over ideology.The result is that Mr. Trump may end up with a foreign policy team composed of deep loyalists, but with roots in familiar Republican approaches. The shift that the two men have made reflects the broader marginalization of neocons throughout the Republican Party after the disaster in Iraq and the rise of America First.Mr. Trump’s loyalists, and much of the party, have now made a full conversion to that worldview, few more enthusiastically than Pete Hegseth, the Fox News host who was chosen as defense secretary on Tuesday.Mr. Hegseth channels both Mr. Trump’s avowed isolationism and his impulsive interventionism. He has also backed Mr. Trump’s occasional use of force, notably the order to killing a senior Iranian general in January 2020. Mr. Hegseth, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, described his own conversion to America First to The New York Times four years ago.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Blinken Heads to NATO as Alliance Prepares for Trump’s Return

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      Officials meeting in Brussels will discuss Ukraine’s war against Russia amid concerns that the new administration will slash U.S. support for Kyiv.Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken is set to depart on Tuesday for Brussels, where he will attend meetings with NATO and European officials to discuss Ukraine’s war against Russia, the State Department announced.Mr. Blinken’s trip, a late addition to his schedule before a trip to Latin America, comes amid grave concern among Ukraine’s supporters that the new Trump administration will slash U.S. support for Kyiv.The Biden administration and NATO officials also fear that President-elect Donald J. Trump may try to undermine the military alliance and even seek to withdraw the United States from it.The State Department said Mr. Blinken would meet NATO and E.U. counterparts “to discuss support for Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s aggression.”Mr. Blinken plans to travel on to Peru and Brazil, where he will join President Biden for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and the Group of 20 Leaders’ Summit. More