Before relinquishing power in January, President Joe Biden may turn America's proxy war with Russia into a direct nuclear conflict.

Elements of the Biden administration, various lawmakers from both major parties, Ukrainian officials, and others appear convinced that attacks on Russia using American long-range missiles might put Kyiv in a better bargaining position should the Eastern nations ever sit down to negotiate an end to the war, which has lasted over 1,000 days and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Critics have suggested not only that the move might protract the war, which the majority of Ukrainians now want to end with immediate negotiations, but that it might trigger a nuclear holocaust or at the very least prevent — by design — President-elect Donald Trump from brokering peace upon taking office.

Missiles fired

After authorizing Ukraine's use of long-range missile systems against targets in Russia — a move long resisted by U.S. officials concerned about escalation and identified by Russian President Vladimir Putin as a trigger for war between Washington and Moscow — Kyiv launched six U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System missiles Tuesday morning at a weapons depot in Karachev, a Russian city 70 miles inside the country, in the Bryansk region.

'We must not fear doing more now.'

According to CNN, Russian air defenses allegedly shot down five of the ATACMS supersonic missiles, and the sixth was damaged. Pieces of the damaged missile rained down near a military facility, causing a fire but resulting in neither death nor damage.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed the attempted missile strikes and suggested that these and subsequent long-range missile strikes would be interpreted as U.S. military actions.

Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said in a statement, "The [Russian] president mentioned this several times. If long-range missiles are going to be applied from Ukraine into Russian territory, it will also mean that they are operated by American experts, military experts, and we will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia and will react accordingly."

In his Tuesday address to the European Parliament, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, "We must not fear doing more now."

"While some European leaders think about, you know, some elections or something like this at Ukraine's expense, Putin is focused on winning this war. He will not stop on his own. The more time he has, the worse the conditions become," said Zelenskyy.

The Institute for the Study of War indicated that as of June, Putin had captured roughly one-fifth of Ukraine, with Russian forces occupying 75% of the total area of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts.

"Today is the best moment to push Russia harder, and it's clear without certain key factors Russia will lack real motivation to engage in meaningful negotiation," added Zelenskyy.

Hours later, Russia reportedly conducted missile strikes on Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernihiv, and Sumy, as well as drone attacks inside Ukraine.

The U.S. embassy in Kyiv announced Wednesday morning that it was shutting its doors, citing the potential of a "significant air attack."

Nuclear, mine policies updated

Russian state media indicated that Moscow revised its nuclear doctrine this week in hopes of "making conventional warfare unachievable," qualifying attacks by a non-nuclear state in conjunction with the support of a nuclear state as a joint attack, satisfying the need for for nuclear deterrence.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of the Russian Federation's security council, noted on X, "Russia's new nuclear doctrine means NATO missiles fired against our country could be deemed an attack by the bloc on Russia. Russia could retaliate with WMD against Kiev and key NATO facilities, wherever they're located. That means World War III."

Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled that he would also respond with nukes to conventional attacks on Russia or Belarus. Russia has over 5,000 nuclear warheads and boasts a supersonic missile with a range of 625 miles.

Sergey Naryshkin, director of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, claimed that the West realizes "the revisions Putin outlined have largely undermined the attempts by the United States and NATO to achieve a strategic defeat of our nation. Furthermore, the expanded criteria for using nuclear weapons essentially rule out the possibility of defeating the Russian Armed Forces on the battlefield."

U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the Associated Press, "I'm unfortunately not surprised by the comments the Kremlin has made around the publication of this new, revised document," adding that Russia has routinely sought to "coerce and intimidate both Ukraine and other countries around the world through irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and behavior."

The U.K. and other NATO members condemned the "irresponsible rhetoric" and reiterated their support for Ukraine.

The Biden administration had a policy update of its own.

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Washington Post reported that Biden authorized the provision of antipersonnel land mines to Ukraine.

"When they're used in concert with the other munitions that we already are providing Ukraine, the intent is that they will contribute to a more effective defense," said one of the officials.

While the U.S. is not one of the 164 parties to the Ottawa Convention, also known as the Mine Ban Treaty, Biden reportedly resurrected an Obama-era policy in 2022 banning the transfer and use of American antipersonnel land minds outside Korea.

Reactions

Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck suggested that the Biden administration is painting Russian President Vladimir Putin "into a corner."

"A man who is a bloodthirsty killer — you don't keep backing him into a corner, or what happens? Eventually he says, 'I'll have absolutely no credibility' [with] his people who have just been bombed with U.S. missiles, which he just said two days ago will be an act of war," said Beck. "We have entered a moment of madness. What Joe Biden did is impeachable."

'Americans do not want World War III.'

A day prior to the ATACMS strikes, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) insisted that Biden had committed "an unconstitutional Act of War" that qualified as an impeachable offense.

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Texas Rep. Keith Self (R) penned a letter to Biden Tuesday, challenging his decision to authorize Ukraine's use of ATACMS against Russia.

While Self suggested the missile systems might have proved strategically useful earlier in the conflict, at this stage in the war, their use is "counter-productive to President-elect Donald J. Trump's stated goal towards a negotiated peace."

'This is the faceless power of failing experts in action.'

"If this desperate move by your administration represents an attempt by deep-state operatives to hamstring the incoming Trump presidency, it's a dangerous miscalculation," wrote Self. "I am very concerned that this miscalculation could have catastrophic results. Americans do not want World War III."

"January 20 can't get here fast enough," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told Fox News' Laura Ingraham. "It looks like a green light for escalation on the part of Ukraine. ... What would happen if Russia would launch and retaliate missiles into the territory of a NATO member? Then our treaty obligations would be triggered. Then we're talking about a full-scale war."

Hawley noted further that the man who authorized the use of the long-range missiles against a nuclear power was considered too decrepit by his own party to stay in the presidential race earlier this year.

Blaze News editor in chief Matthew Peterson stressed that "what is happening in regard to Russia and Ukraine while we have no functional President is one of the last, most reckless and outrageous acts from the supposed 'adults in the room' who have consistently driven our nation towards the cliff the last four disastrous years."

"This is not 'democracy,'" continued Peterson. "This is the faceless power of failing experts in action: thwarting the will of the people in the midst of the final 'lame duck' period of an aging dementia patient of a President. This is a form of masochistic, suicidal recklessness enacted by weak men."

Peterson added on "Blaze News Tonight," "There is really something that I think that is despicable about the self-assured foreign policy expert in this country. Of all the different sectors of government experts who get degrees, foreign policy people dress themselves up in the suits and in the trappings of -isms and -istics, and, 'We know all this stuff and we have domain knowledge that you don't have.' They're consistently the most evil, dangerous, and really foolish sector of the entire government complex."

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