shavenferret said:
If Ukraine starts hitting civilian targets like Russia has, they will be blasted by the international community and will quickly lose support. There are ways around all of these rules. One possibility is Ukraine actually purchasing these missles so that they can use them as seen fit to keep any responsibility off of the donating party. |
I doubt that Ukraine purchasing the missiles will get around the rules, there's no logic in saying things are different if I give you a weapon for free vs if you purchase the weapon, in both scenarios, the weapon is Ukraine's, it isn't a loan, it's a gift and any rules applied to a free gift would likely apply to a sale. Also, they'd still be fired from HIMARS launchers so Ukraine would have to purchase the HIMARS too.
I didn't mention about civilians either, nobody thinks Ukraine will start hitting civilians if they can fire into Russia...The troops are amassing on the border which Ukraine can't do anything about, drones won't be enough because they'd need to produce thousands of drones per month, they already use dozens for single attacks across Russia, there's a reason they use them on mostly things like oil facilities, because they aren't as heavily guarded. Drones are fine on secluded troops, low-defended oil fields and overloading AD systems to sneak a missile in but concentrated troop locations will be heavily defended with electronic warfare to knock drones out.
The reason they don't allow it is because the western world is terrified of Russia (still) despite the fact that Russia has already accused Ukraine of using western weapons on Russian soil, despite the fact that Russia has accused NATO of fighting in with Ukrainian troops, despite the fact that Russia has publicly claimed Crimea as part of Russia for the past 10 years and Ukraine has smashed it multiple times with ATACMS, Storm Shadow, etc.
But Belgorod is different, for some reason, Russia will get mad at us...
Fact is if this policy continues then Russia will just turn Sumy and Kharkhiv into rubble.
