LONDON, November 21. /TASS/. The Eastern front in Ukraine may crumble if Russia keeps up the rate of its advance in the combat zone, the BBC said, citing experts.
According to them, US President Joe Biden’s decision to supply Ukraine with anti-personnel landmines and authorize strikes with long-range missiles deep inside Russia was also triggered by the rapid advance of Russian forces along the frontline. The news outlet reports that the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) emphasized that Russia "is advancing towards key Ukrainian logistical hubs" located in eastern Donbass. That said, according to the experts, Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s borderline Kursk Region turned out to be a "strategic catastrophe" amid "manpower shortages." Against this backdrop, Marina Miron, a defense researcher at Kings College London, suggested that there was a possibility that the Ukrainian Eastern front "might actually collapse" if Russia continued to advance at this pace.
The New York Times reported on November 17, citing sources, that Biden had authorized the use of US-supplied ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles for strikes inside Russia. Publicly, the US administration has neither confirmed nor denied this information. Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell stated that some EU countries had also allowed to use their weapons for strikes deep into Russia.
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the revised nuclear doctrine provides for a nuclear response if Ukraine uses Western non-nuclear missiles against Russia. Earlier, the Kremlin official emphasized that the West’s decision to use long-range missiles marked "a qualitatively new phase" of tensions.
On November 2, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Alexander Syrsky during a meeting with a delegation from the Czech Republic’s armed forces led by Chief of the General Staff Karel Rehka said that the Ukrainian army was facing one of the most powerful offensives by the Russian military since February 2022. On November 9, Syrsky, in a phone call with General Christopher Cavoli, commander of United States European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, reported that the situation was complex across the entire line of combat engagement.