Biden to give long-range ATACMS missiles to Kyiv
U.S. President Joe Biden has agreed this weekend to send a “small number” of long-range missiles known as the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) to Kyiv in the coming weeks according to NBC News and the Wall Street Journal.
Meanwhile, in Geneva, a U.N. inquiry into human rights has revealed that substantial evidence has been collected to implicate Putin on human rights violation. In less than two weeks, Russia will run for reelection to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Although initially hesitant to ship long-range missiles to Kyiv, Biden’s decision comes in response to the U.S.’ “realization that Russia is gaining more ground and aligning itself with other alliances to make its position stronger than before,” according to Princeton Professor Mahiri Mwita.
The U.S. and NATO have displayed caution in their assistance to Ukraine and in their rhetoric towards Russia throughout the past year and a half of conflict. Many people are concerned that the use of U.S.-made missiles could aggravate Moscow and bring the U.S. closer to direct conflict. Whether Ukraine plans to use these U.S.-supplied missiles to “strike further within Russia itself” dictates whether this is “an escalation that could be dangerous” as opposed to only “us[ing] them in occupied Ukraine,” according Peter Singer, Australian moral philosopher and Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.
There is “a danger” without the “assurance that they [long-range missiles] won’t be used inside Russia itself,” says Singer.
Despite U.S. qualms, Russia has stuck to the narrative that actors in the West have been the true aggravators in the war. In a press conference on Saturday, September 23, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists that the U.S. was directly in conflict with Moscow rather than in a proxy war as others have claimed, reports CNN.
“We can call this a hybrid war, but that doesn’t change the reality,” said Lavrov in CNN.
Should it be true that American missiles are killing Russians inside their country, then the idea of direct conflict and war “would be verified in the eyes of Russians” which “could lead to dangerous escalation,” says Singer.
On Monday, September 26, 8 U.S.-made M1 Abrams tanks arrived in Kyiv, amid concerns doing so would bring NATO more “directly into war.” Two months earlier, the U.S. agreed to send Ukraine cluster-bombs, despite protests from human rights groups concerned about the dangers of undetonated bombs left behind after the end of the war.
Russia “campaigns aggressively” to rejoin UN Human Rights Council, says BBC.
On Monday, September 26, a U.N. -mandated investigative body stated it had collected evidence that Russian military in occupied Ukraine has inflicted “widespread and systematic” torture “with such brutality that is has caused the death of the victim,” reported Reuters.
Over 15 months ago, Russia was expelled from the United Nations Human Rights Council after invading Ukraine, with “93 votes cast in favour…24 against it and 58 abstentions,” according to The Independent.
No Russian representative attended the U.N. hearings this past week, and thus no response was given to the allegations. In March, the U.N. commission announced that the crimes of Russian forces in Ukraine “may constitute crimes against humanity,” including “the use of torture.”
“Russia is trying to reestablish its credibility,” says Mwita, amid recent news that Russia prepares to run for reelection to the U.N. Human Rights Council in an upcoming vote on October 10th.
Moscow is circulating a position paper at the U.N. campaigning its intention to “promote principles of cooperation and strengthening of constructive mutually respectful dialogue in the council in order to find adequate solutions for human rights issues,” reports BBC.
“They’re trying to refuse to be labeled, and maligned by the USA,” says Mwita.
The Russian position paper being circulated purports its primary focus is to prevent the “increasing trend” of weaponizing the HRC for punishing rivals or rewarding allies of its member nations.
Mwita points to the fact that the U.S. has continued to have a spot at the HRC despite their own atrocities committed in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq as rationale for Russia’s scrutiny towards the HRC and its removal from the council.
In the eyes of Russia, Moscow has a “right to rejoin the HRC” if the U.S. continues can continue to sit on it despite their own human rights violations abroad, says Mwita.
Moscow has reportedly begun seeking votes from smaller countries in exchange for the promise of goods such as “grain and arms,” writes BBC. Russia only competes against Albania and Bulgaria for two remaining seats on the council.
“Rejoining the HRC is a way of them [Russia] showing their force,” says Mwita.
