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ARE you weary of the war in Ukraine? Tired of the drumbeat of death and doom?
I am. It is exhausting.
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It has been a thousand days of slaughter, a thousand days of war crimes peppered with the prospect of nuclear armageddon.
And we are just spectators. So imagine how the soldiers feel.
That’s why I am relieved — at last — that US President Joe Biden has finally found the steel to let Ukraine fire US missiles at targets on Russian soil.
Do not believe the scaremongers. This is not an escalation. It is not the spark for World War Three.
It is nothing more than a just reply to the thousand days of war in which Russia has blasted Ukraine with every conventional weapon it has managed to get its hands on — including Shahed drones from Iran and ballistic missiles from North Korea.
Ukraine has the right to hit back. Just like Britain hit Germany during World War Two and planned to hit Argentina during the Falklands War.
Biden should have done this ages ago — a thousand days ago, to be precise.
Now Britain and France — locked in ongoing talks with the US — must be allowed to follow suit so that Ukraine can use their long-range Storm Shadow and SCALP cruise missiles.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz should give Ukraine Taurus cruise missiles instead of cosying up to President Putin with phone calls to the Kremlin.
Because standing up to Russia is the only way this war ends well.
A good end is a swift end. No sane person wants this slaughter to last for a second longer than it must.
But peace at any cost means a victory for Moscow. Peace at any cost means capitulating to Russia and rewarding Vlad-imir Putin’s war crimes and aggression.
It means forcing Ukraine to sue for peace now. It is some form of surrender.
Surrender means the West’s resolve has been tested and found wanting.
That leaves America and Nato discredited. It leaves Russia, China, Iran and North Korea emboldened.
That spells trouble for the Baltics, trouble for Taiwan, trouble for the Middle East and trouble for South Korea.
Iranian drones
And it seeds doubt among smaller countries forced to pick a side in future.
Ukraine is maybe Europe’s front line but its soldiers are fighting for more than their homes. They are defending the world as we know it.
So why shouldn’t they have ATACMS missiles? Why shouldn’t they have Storm Shadows, SCALPS and Taurus missiles?
Because Russia tells us they can’t? Because the country which started the worst war in Europe since World War Two accuses us of escalation?
Every time Ukraine’s allies have donated a new weapon system, the Kremlin has crowed about escalation.
Yet all the West has ever done is help Ukraine match Russia — and usually months or years too late.
It took more than half a year for the first GMLRS and Himars rocket launchers to arrive. It took 14 months for the first Patriot air-defence batteries and Challenger 2 main battle tanks.
Meanwhile Russia is buying an estimated three million artillery shells a year from Pyongyang, North Korean ballistic missiles, and now 12,000 North Korean soldiers are being thrown into battle in Kursk.
Moscow relies on Iranian drones to expose and overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences in almost every major missile blitz.
And it has also taken delivery of ballistic missiles from Iran, although it is unclear if they have been used.
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A good end to this war is a quick end that leaves Russia chastened and Ukraine secure. No single weapon can achieve that.
But every little helps. These missiles may start to level the playing field. It is easy to make the mistake of thinking Russia’s victory is inevitable.
For most of the last 18 months, the war has been going Russia’s way. Russia’s troops have been advancing. Ukraine’s front line has been crumbling.
The nature of attritional conflict plays to Russia’s main strength, which is its size.
Biden’s decision on ATACMS will let Ukraine hit Russian airfields, ammo dumps and bases deep inside Moscow’s territory.
It will force Russia to keep its supplies farther from the front lines.
That makes it harder to supply its forces. It means bombers will have to use more remote airfields, which means more fuel and fewer bombs each time they take off.
It also brings the war home to Russia, to ordinary Russians, which may increase pressure on Putin to justify the slaughter.
The latest UK estimate is that Russia has suffered more than 700,000 casualties, including dead and injured. That is an average of 700 soldiers a day.
But this month the rate is more than double.
Russian losses
According to UK Defence Intelligence, Russia lost an average of 1,500 people a day in November — the highest rate since the start of the war.
That is on top of some 3,500 tanks, almost 2,000 guns and 8,500 armoured vehicles.
There is no doubt Ukraine is hurting — it is war-weary and exhausted.
Russia is straining, too. There are very few people in Britain who can remember how it felt in the first years of World War Two.
We had retreated from Dunkirk and were losing to Rommel’s Afrika Korps.
So, when America’s President Roosevelt sent us 50 naval destroyers to bolster the Royal Navy — a policy of “all aid short of war” — he didn’t say we could only use them in UK territorial waters.
Nor did the RAF wait for the Luftwaffe to cross the Channel before they shot at them.
And the SAS was founded with long-range missions attacking Axis airfields in Libya deep behind the front lines.
We took the war to our enemies to bring it to the best conclusion — a victory as quickly as possible.
Ukraine seeks nothing more. It is our duty to support them.
