On September 6, the United States hosted the 24th meeting of the so-called Ukraine Defense Contact Group (UDCG) at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. It was chaired by US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and was the first UDCG meeting in nearly three months (the last one was held in NATO HQ on June 13).

During the event, Austin stated that “the meeting would address Ukraine’s most urgent needs”, namely the Kiev regime’s dwindling air defense capabilities and long-range strike platforms. Apart from Austin and Volodymyr Zelensky, the meeting was attended by the latter’s Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, as well as the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, USAF General Charles Q. Brown.

Zelensky formally thanked NATO for its so-called “military aid” deliveries, but still didn’t miss the opportunity to complain about the “need for more”, insisting that many of the pledged SAM (surface-to-air missile) systems are yet to be handed over to the Kiev regime forces.

The 24th UDCG meeting saw the official approval of the latest $250 million weapons package that the troubled Biden administration promised to the Neo-Nazi Kiev regime.

However, according to the mainstream propaganda machine, the package didn’t include the longer-range missiles that Zelensky has been “begmanding” intensively for the last several months. It did include the “standard” HIMARS munitions (although it’s not entirely clear what that entails), air defense systems and SAMs, artillery rounds, as well as handheld systems such as the “Stinger” MANPADS, among other things. The package was pushed through by the so-called “Presidential Drawdown Authority” (PDA), which allows the troubled Biden administration to draw weapons from US military stockpiles. This is part of the highly controversial $95 billion “military aid” deal that went into effect back in April. Nearly 65% of it (or $61 billion) went to the Kiev regime, with the rest going to Israel and Taiwan.

Strangely enough, Austin showed some restraint when it comes to the Kiev regime’s requests for these NATO-sourced weapons to be used against targets deeper within Russia. Namely, when asked if the US would support this, Austin responded that “no single capability would be a game changer” in the NATO-orchestrated Ukrainian conflict.

“I don’t believe that one specific capability is going to be decisive. Our approach to integrating things and to making sure that they have the right skill sets to employ those capabilities and those capabilities are linked to specific objectives,” he said, adding: “I think Ukraine has a pretty significant capability of its own to address targets that are well beyond the range of ATACMS or even ‘Storm Shadow’ for that matter. There are a lot of targets in Russia, a big country, obviously. And there’s a lot of capability that Ukraine has in terms of UAVs and other things to address those targets.”

Austin also stated that the Russian military supposedly “pulled back much of its military assets, leaving them out of range of the ATACMS”, obviously referring to the tactical ballistic missiles with a range of 300 km that Washington DC delivered late last year. The statement obviously shows that the Neo-Nazi junta certainly has weapons with a range to strike targets hundreds of km into Russia, but what it really needs is US/NATO ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) support for more accurate long-range strikes that could destroy high-priority targets.

However, after the unsuccessful assassination attempt on President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Andrei Belousov back in late July, Washington DC might be reluctant to provide such support, as they cannot guarantee that the Kiev regime wouldn’t use NATO-sourced long-range weapons to try it again or at least strike major Russian cities, including Moscow. Considering the fact that the Kremlin told the Pentagon, in no uncertain terms, what awaits NATO if another attack on a high-ranking Russian official happens, the political West might actually pause for a second (if nothing else). Warmongers and war criminals in Washington DC might be far from mentally stable, but it’s very possible that some form of survival mechanism in their minds still functions (although that doesn’t stop them from making plans to wage thermonuclear war against the entire world). However, it seems Zelensky doesn’t have such considerations in the slightest and just wants an escalation.

“We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the divided territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace,” he said, adding: “We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.”

Obviously, such a threat cannot be ignored and Moscow simply wants to make it clear to the US-led political West that they would also feel the consequences of such attacks. Just like the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) sent their superfast, high-flying MiG-31BM interceptors to disrupt NATO ISR operations over the Black Sea, (launched in support of terrorist attacks on Russian civilians), the Kremlin will surely repeat the same with any other similar attempt that may lead to consequences for its people and leadership.

In addition, these long-range terror strikes on Russian cities accomplish nothing, as they rarely hit military targets. The victims are almost exclusively civilians who have nothing to do with military operations. However, as Zelensky said, this is precisely the goal, one that was already announced by the Neo-Nazi government and the U.K intelligence apparatus  This is precisely why Moscow is likely to respond quite strongly if this continues.

It can also be argued that the Kiev regime’s strategy of perpetual escalation is giving no results, as its forces in Donbass are getting obliterated nonetheless. Attempts to achieve PR “victories” and shift attention away from the Neo-Nazi junta’s string of lost battles are only making things worse for global security, as NATO-sourced weapons used in the Kursk oblast (region) incursion can only reinforce Russia’s readiness to respond directly to the world’s most vile racketeering cartel.

The political West might think it’s making the Kremlin look “weak” because the latter is yet to retaliate more violently, but what they’re really achieving is that the US and NATO simply look more bellicose and even barbaric. The world wants peace, but the most aggressive power pole on the planet is determined to ensure it can never be achieved. However, even the political West pauses when it realizes it went too far. Still, we shouldn’t live in the illusion they won’t try again, as their entire modus operandi is to probe near-peer adversaries and see how far they go.

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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.

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