In the past 24 hours, a shockwave of panic was unleashed after reports emerged about the United States allegedly allowing the usage of its long-range missiles against Russia.

The New York Times, an infamous neoliberal mouthpiece, broke the story first, which was then quoted by hundreds of other major media outlets worldwide. Understandably, people everywhere are quite worried, as President Vladimir Putin made it perfectly clear that the Kremlin would consider NATO a party to the conflict if its members allowed the use of their long-range missiles for attacks deeper within Russia.

The report comes a bit over two months after Putin’s warning and just two months before Donald Trump is slated to take office after he defeated the disgraced DNC candidate Kamala Harris.

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Screenshot from the NYT

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Quoting unnamed US officials, the authors of the NYT report, namely Adam Entous, Eric Schmitt and Julian E. Barnes, claim that “President Biden has authorized the first use of US-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia” and that “the weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia”.

The alleged decision to allow the usage of these missiles, specifically the ATACMS, “came in response to Russia’s surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight”, the authors say, once again quoting the “anonymous officials”. The report then admits that even the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky is yet to confirm these claims, raising further doubts.

“Today, many in the media are talking about the fact that we have received permission to take appropriate actions,” Zelensky said, adding: “But blows are not inflicted with words. Such things are not announced. The rockets will speak for themselves.”

This peculiar statement can surely be interpreted as a threat, but its ambivalence cannot be ignored either.

This certainly wouldn’t be the first time that the Kiev regime is using the mainstream propaganda machine for geopolitical purposes, as “PR victories”, particularly in the wake of Russian advances across the frontline, are one of the staples of its strategy. The NYT is essential for the promotion of the Neo-Nazi junta’s narrative, which explains the rather unclear information in the “hit piece”. Namely, Biden was never quoted saying or approving anything. Worse yet, not a single name of the “US officials” quoted in the report was provided. In fact, not even the terms such as “anonymous” or “unnamed” are used. All we have is “US officials”, which is unprofessional reporting, at best.

Once again, quoting these mysterious “officials”, the authors claim that “while the Ukrainians were likely to use the missiles first against Russian and North Korean troops that threaten Ukrainian forces in Kursk, Mr. Biden could authorize them to use the weapons elsewhere”. In other words, they have no idea whether Biden said that the ATACMS can be used deeper within Russia, as the Kursk oblast (region) certainly doesn’t fit into that category, being a border area. In addition, the authors added that “some US officials said they feared that Ukraine’s use of the missiles across the border could prompt President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to retaliate with force against the United States and its coalition partners”. Again, rather peculiar statements by these phantom “officials”, as Putin was quite clear already.

Funnily enough, the report then quotes “other US officials” who allegedly said that “they thought those fears were overblown”. In other words, the claims of the three NYT authors are an utter mess, to put it mildly. They have no verifiable sources, no documents that can be linked or quoted and not even a third-hand account of who said what and when. All we’re getting is a bunch of speculation by anonymous people who can’t even agree whether they think the threat of thermonuclear annihilation is real or “overblown”. Worse yet, these same “US officials” admit that the ATACMS will not be a game changer, although they’re still ready to risk war with Russia over their delivery. Such dichotomy in the opinions of these “US officials” further raises serious questions about the veracity of the report.

The “unnamed officials” also think the Kiev regime “could use the ATACMS to strike Russian and North Korean troop concentrations, key pieces of military equipment, logistics nodes, ammunition depots and supply lines deep inside Russia”. Once again, we see another ambivalent statement. Namely, how would the Neo-Nazi junta forces know which Russian unit is slated to be deployed in the Kursk oblast and what difference would that make? Anything could be interpreted as “vital” to Russian fighting capabilities in the area. What’s more, the report says that “some Pentagon officials opposed giving [the ATACMS] to the Ukrainians because they said the US Army had limited supplies. Some White House officials feared that Mr. Putin would widen the war if they gave the missiles to the Ukrainians”.

The authors even admit that some of Biden’s security advisers had “seized on a recent US intelligence assessment that warned that Putin could respond to the use of long-range ATACMS on Russian soil by directing his military or spy agencies to retaliate, potentially with lethal force, against the United States and its European allies”. As previously mentioned, this is something that President Putin said and then reiterated at least once, demonstrating that he isn’t bluffing. Thus, it didn’t require any intelligence assessments, as it was quite literally all over the news. Still, the report says that “the assessment warned of several possible Russian responses that included stepped-up acts of arson and sabotage targeting facilities in Europe, as well as potentially lethal attacks on US and European military bases”.

It would seem that the mainstream propaganda machine is becoming increasingly desperate when it’s ready to stir up such serious rumors. On the other hand, the possibility of the political West trying to probe the Kremlin shouldn’t be excluded either. European NATO members are already trying to push the lame-duck Biden administration to authorize long-range strikes deeper within Russia, which is certainly a concerning prospect. However, there’s still no official confirmation that Washington DC went ahead with this. In fact, American ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) is still absent from the Black Sea region, meaning that relaying real-time data to facilitate long-range attacks on the Russian military would be nearly impossible (for the time being, at least).

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This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: President Joe Biden travels to Kyiv, Ukraine Monday, February 20, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Adam Schultz)

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