Some were yesterday disappointed that the US have not entirely lifted the ban on US weapons, which stills prevents Ukraine from using ATACMS against targets in Russia and, yes, this is still something which needs to remedied. The West still drags its feet and there are still too many who don't grasp that this will only prolong the war. But when we look at this specific decision then it is a technicality, which correction is a question of time. I doubt that it will be even announced. It will just happen. But this not even the core message. Please indulge me. The point is to push and eventually cross Putin's so-called "red lines" and by doing so expose their hollowness. 2 years ago, an announcement from the West of that kind would have been unthinkable. Rewind it to even before February 2022, and many would have called you absolutely unserious to even consider something like this, despite the fact that Russian attacks from Russia itself can be traced all the way back to 2014. It was known to all parties what Russia was doing and the West kept on looking the other way, in hopes that Putin will be satisfied with his latest catch. Putin tactics have always worked when the West backed down. In fact, this was the only reason why they worked in the first place. Other than that, Putin's tactics are shallow. There is no special cunningness. It was simply his confidence that the West would shy away and, honestly, he had also reason to be. All the way up to February 2022 it worked more or less according his will. Putin's endgame has always been to restore Russia in the borders of the Soviet Union and projecting direct power in Europe's East and the world. But he also understood that Russia cannot stand in a direct confrontation against the West. He needed to do it exactly how he used to do it between 2007 and 2022, clandestinely, using corruption, lying, terror and while having some incredible luck it worked to a certain extent. However, his luck ran out when facing the sheer will of the Ukrainian people. Putin has lived under the misconception that the Ukrainian people will accept an imposed regime the same way as the Russian people in its slavish fashion accepts their regime. He couldn't have been more wrong. This is the point where things have started to sideways for Putin. He was compelled to use less subtle methods, using blunt force which did more harm than good, even for him, but to no avail. At some point he realized that he faced a dead end with his methods. He then thought he has to go full throttle into Ukraine and decided probably relatively alone to launch the full scale war in February 2022. He recorded the ridiculous meeting with his ministers on 21st February 2022. I still remember how Putin specifically dressed down Director Naryshkin, spymaster of the SVR, like a school boy when this one spilled the beans regarding the annexation of the Ukrainian regions, a part in Putin's playbook which was scheduled for later that year and not now. This moment screamed so loudly how fake the Russian narrative is and that everything is just a (bad organized) ploy, where not even the most senior Russian officials could keep the lie straight. As thin Putin's strategic thinking is as big was his overconfidence to take Kyiv in 3 days. And this would have been really the only way to disable Ukraine's statehood. A swift decapitation was the only way for Putin's plans to materialize. The moment this failed, the war has gotten a life of his own, something Putin couldn't control at all. The collapse of the Russian armies in the North, Kharkiv and Kherson showed Putin's exposure of having the emperor's new clothes in the most visible fashion. Russia - the aggressor - has become a laughing stock in the world. Putin in face of defeat had to make dangerous decisions which in itself contained the risk of not being enough when the West adjusted to them. What remains for Putin now is only to react, bluff and hope that the West stops and falls back to old habits. This is his only card at hand. He needs to deter the West from doing the right thing, and tries this left and right. Every time an announcement of that kind - like the permission of Western weapons against Russian soil - comes out, his hope gets severely pummeled. However, this is not even the worst for Putin. Even the most iron regime needs a loyal underbody in the ministries and generality. Putin must constantly convince them that his long-term plan works, but this always blows up in his and their faces when a decision of that kind is announced. It makes Putin and them livid to make even more riskier decisions for them. The Wagner uprising showed how fast this can go. The Russian army disappeared overnight. Putin had to organize dump trucks to block Moscow. He was finished. Wagner was moving almost unimpededly through Russia. Only Prigozhin's decision to stop (and having himself killed later) saved Putin, for now. Btw. this is no way to praise Prigozhin. It only serves as as an example how unstable the regime in Moscow is. Any new Russian government which not completely reverses the Putin regime's wrong trajectory shouldn't bother even trying to topple Vladimir. This will have to end, entirely. This is why I constantly point out, when Russian red lines are getting crossed. This is the point and story. They are as hollow as Putin's threats. That talk of "nuclear" strikes is self-defeating, because it shows the absolute state of nervousness within the Russian regime, and while the topic of nuclear weapons is a serious one, it must not be overlooked what their real purpose is. It is to deter others from destroying the nation. The truth, however, is that Russian statehood is not threatened, at least not by the West. It is the Russian regime which feels threatened to be gone tomorrow. But you can imagine that nobody in the world, not even China, India or others in the global south will need only a second to decide, whether they want to have a radioactive world on one hand or Putin's regime fall over their own miscalculations on the other hand. We know that China and India have severely warned Putin from not making that wrong move and this warning sticks. If the Russian regime and by extension the Russian Federation falls apart due to Moscow's miscalculations, just like the Soviet Union did, then this is fate. The world will move on, most certainly far better than before. Coming back to my initial paragraph. The West has to do what must be done, but in far higher strength, frequency and speed. The more Russian lies and bluffs are getting exposed, the more the Putin regime gets out of balance and the sooner we can end this war. When it comes to Ukraine's and Western interests, then no self-imposed restrictions must be applied. Whatever is necessary to defeat Russia, must be put on the table and executed at once. Nobody other than the Ukrainians know better what is needed for that purpose. Get it done and get it done faster. As US President Franklin D. Roosevelt once eloquently said: "There's nothing to fear but fear itself."

“In a conversation with the leaders of Norway and Finland, Putin noted that a just long-term peace in Ukraine is possible only by taking into account the interests of the Russian Federation.” ⤵️ From TASS