The FSB Thwarted One Of Ukraine’s Most Dangerous Escalation Plots Against Russia

By Andrew Korybko

They might have saved the peace process and therefore literally changed the world.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Thursday that it thwarted Ukraine’s long-range Sapsan ballistic missile program by passing along the coordinates of its production facilities and their air defence systems to the armed forces who then carried out successful precision strikes against them. A paper prepared by a Ukrainian government research centre late last year revealed that Kiev was six months away from building such weapons according to a report from The Times back then.

This analysis here assessed that the program’s completion “would likely lead to Russia having to compromise on its goal of demilitarizing Ukraine, which was one of the main reasons behind the special operation, thus possibly leading to more compromises on other goals too.” Putting an end to it therefore naturally became one of Russia’s top priorities. This was later achieved as proven by the satellite imagery shared by RT in their report about this operation.

They also mentioned how an FSB source told TASS that “Germany’s financial support and the assistance of foreign specialists” played an important role in this program. RT then reminded their readers that “In May, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that Germany would fund Ukraine’s domestic production of long-range missiles…The German Defence Ministry also stated at the time that investing in Ukraine’s production would enable Kiev to have a ‘substantial’ number of long-range weapons this year.”

These details shed more light on the motivations behind this plot. Some of the Europeans like Germany fear escalating tensions with Russia by providing Ukraine with their own missiles while others like France and the UK that already sent them don’t want to further deplete their stockpiles. The decision was thus made to help Ukraine produce its own missiles. This would enable the Europeans to manage escalations with Russia, or so they assumed, at the same time as empowering Ukraine to escalate in their stead.

Giving Ukraine these capabilities, which would have still relied on Western satellites for hitting targets deep inside of Russia like Putin assessed last September, was also meant to help Zelensky advance their joint goal of derailing Russian-US talks. By Ukraine escalating through long-range missile strikes against civilian targets in Moscow, for example, Russia might have felt compelled to retaliate in ways that could have then been exploited to pressure Trump into escalating as well and thus sabotage the peace process.

Neither the Europeans (with the exception of Hungary and Slovakia) nor the Ukrainians want the proxy war on Russia to end, let alone via any concessions to Russia, ergo why the German-led EU (and perhaps the UK along with anti-Russian US “deep state” elements) sought to help Ukraine develop these missiles. This plot was being pursued in parallel with warmongers like Lindsey Graham manipulating Trump into mission creep in order to serve as a back-up plan in case he ultimately defied them and “went rogue”.

That’s precisely what he appears to have done with regard to his plans to host Putin on Friday, but with Ukraine’s missile program in shambles due to the FSB’s operation, the only escalation that Zelensky might now resort to is a false-flag attack. Even if he goes through with the plot that the Russian Ministry of Defence warned about, it might not suffice for derailing their talks like the missile scenario could have, so the FSB might have thus saved the peace process and therefore literally changed the world.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Voice of East.

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Categories: Analysis, Geopolitics, Russia

Tags: Europe, FSB, Geopolitics, Germany, Russia, UK, Ukraine, USA