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11 19 24 POLITICO Reporter Jack Detsch on Ukraine using US made missiles in Russia
But there's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank. You deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one. Member FDIC. If you put aside 25 cents every week for a year, what could you get at the end? A few cups of coffee maybe? A candle? Or you could get a year of the best reporting from all over the world. Go to washingtonpost.com/bf24 right now. You'll get a Washington Post subscription for 25 cents a week for your first year. This is a Black Friday sale, so it won't last long. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays! The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre-based stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TV and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeartRadio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming! Today marks 1,000 days since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, multiple sources indicating that President Biden is now giving the okay for Ukraine to strike Russia with US-made, long-range missiles. And Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has been asking to use these types of weapons for some time now. What does this mean in the sense of the escalation of the war in Ukraine? North Korean troops from Russia, which we talked about before, and now the permission, at least to strike with these missiles in the Kursk region for Ukraine and Russia. What does this look like? The Ukrainians are already taking this permission and running with it this morning, taking strikes in Bergeonsk, which is on the border region, with the Ukrainians, key of saying they struck a Russian arsenal weapons depot. So this is the type of thing that they'll be trying to do, take out Russian logistical nodes, take out weapons, seepos, take out troops that are further from the front line to try and degrade Russia's industrial advantages in this war. Now of course, the administration for a long time has been concerned about the fear of the escalation, although as the further you go east in Europe, especially on the eastern flank of NATO and to Ukraine, there's not that fear. You saw, of course, Vladimir Putin now lowered the threshold for nuclear use potentially. But ever since 2023, when Putin was considering using attack for the nuclear weapons, talked about it with the Chinese, the Chinese made very clear they were not okay with Putin using attack to nuclear weapons in Ukraine. So there's the diplomatic angle that Putin would have to play with. So escalation may potentially be off the table on that front, but you do see a new dynamic in the war, at least for the upcoming two months before the Trump administration takes office. Yeah, Jack, let's dive a little bit into that. I mean, the Biden administration was pretty much reluctant from the start to provide these long-range missiles, given the concerns of escalating the war, like we're seeing now. So what changed in order to give that okay, and then what will happen two months later when President-elect Trump takes office? Well, I think that's exactly it. You just see, at this point, the Ukrainians being pushed to the negotiating table. So there's a potential now for the Ukrainians to get back more territory, to get more leverage to perhaps secure that salient incursque, which has come under threat. The Russians have taken about a third of that back from what the Ukrainians clawed forward earlier in the year. They've put other parts of the line under significant pressure, particularly in the south and the east. So it's to put the Ukrainians in as strong a position as possible. It doesn't necessarily obviate the fear that the Biden administration has about escalation, but just potentially puts the Ukrainians on a stronger footing should the Trump administration try and push them towards the negotiating table. Now, this also creates an interesting dynamic with Ukraine's other allies, because we've seen in recent days, both the Brits and the French lift their restrictions on long-range weapons for the Ukrainians to fire into Russia. Those permissions are probably not coming back as of January, and we could see the Germans also potentially electing a more pro-Ukraine government that could lift their restrictions on long-range weapons. So even as the US potentially looking at clawing back this decision in January, if there's not a resolution at the negotiating table, you could see even more support from the Europeans. One more question on Ukraine, Jack. Does this fly in the face of Vladimir Zelensky saying maybe with the Trump presidency, the war ends sooner? Doesn't seem that way. And what does he signal link to the Trump administration by saying this could end sooner? Well, I think Zelensky is trying to directly play the politics of this situation. And look, I mean, key did not put their foot down very, very clearly between the two presidential candidates, even though there was a fear that you could see in a Trump administration sort of the drawing back of American firepower and American force in this conflict. I think because Zelensky knows very clearly the Russians are not in a position to try and negotiate. The Russians have not wanted to negotiate. The Russians have wanted to continue to extract leverage. And I think there is a feeling among some of the allies that the Russians could sort of look at this plan by the Trump administration to try and freeze the lines or try and have a negotiation and just continue the war. So I think they're really trying to prepare for all scenarios in key, whether it's a negotiation or whether it's continuing this conflict into the coming years. Jack, let's pivot over to some of the nominations that we've seen from President-elect Trump and some of the pushback that may be coming from them. The latest we've been talking about is Peter Heggseth for the nomination for defense secretary. What has been the overall reaction that we've seen so far to this nomination? Well, we saw initially Republicans on the Senate floor, in particular, the ones that matter being okay with this nomination now. Of course, in recent days, we've seen new revelations about police investigations into the allegation of sexual assault, again, Heggseth in recent years and in 2017. So if this continues to spiral and, of course, news in that explosive Washington report over the weekend was that indeed paid to potentially deal with this complaint, that could be something that could be investigated in, of course, a confirmation hearing. You have Republicans up for reelection that might not want to vote on a nomination like this. You look at Tom Tillis if he decides to run for reelection in the contested state of North Carolina, potentially some others, even though the Senate map does look favorable for Republicans coming up in 2026. But this could be a tough nomination to try and get through. It's going to be up to Trump and the transition team to decide if they want to take the heat on Heggseth, which is going to continue to boil over. And you wrote an article recently in political about Michael Anton and Sebastian Gorka as being a potential deputy national security advisors. What's the Pentagon reaction to those to, especially in light of what's going on in Ukraine and some other foreign policy? I think, you know, there's sort of a feeling that it's 2017 all over again, a little bit. Of course, you saw both have 10 years on the Trump NSC the first time. Of course, Anton staying a little bit longer into the McMaster era. Gorka, of course, of somebody who's expressed anti-Islamic views did not stay very long. It was just, of course, in the Steve Bannon era at the National Security Council and that sort of when the initial Trump appointees were cleared out by McMaster ended up leaving. So it's interesting, though, that we are seeing after the first two major picks on Trump's national security cabinet, you saw Mike Waltz, you saw Marco Rubio. Now you're seeing sort of some of the more pro-Trump, more classically Trump picks coming back into the light. So that's something that people across agencies in Washington are watching very carefully. Defense reporter for Political It's Jack Dech. Thank you so much for your time this morning. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank. You deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one member FDIC. If you put aside $0.25 every week for a year, what could you get at the end? A few cups of coffee maybe, a candle, or you could get a year of the best reporting from all over the world. Go to washingtonpost.com/bf24 right now. You'll get a Washington Post subscription for $0.25 a week for your first year. This is a Black Friday sale so it won't last long. It's beginning to sound a lot like the holidays. The Roku Channel, your home for free and premium TV, is giving you access to holiday music and genre-based stations from iHeart all for free. Find the soundtrack of the season with channels like iHeartChristmas and North Pole Radio. The Roku Channel is available on all Roku devices, web, Amazon Fire TV, Google TV, Samsung TVs and the Roku mobile app on iOS and Android devices. So stream what you love and turn up the cheer with iHeartRadio on the Roku Channel. Happy streaming!