The biggest danger to Ukraine right now is President Joe Biden, not Vladimir Putin and the hypersonic missile Russia used to strike Ukraine Thursday, said retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer.
Moscow fired the new missile — the Oreshnik or Hazel Tree — at a Ukrainian military facility in response to Kyiv striking Russia with U.S.-made and British-made missiles this week for the first time after the U.S. granted its approval.
“This is significant,” Shaffer told Newsmax TV’s “Chris Salcedo Show.”
“The Hazel missile, this test that they used, is significant. Those are multiple independent reentry vehicles hitting the ground. Now, those didn't have nuclear warheads. But imagine if each one of those hitting the ground had a small nuclear warhead. And to your point, this cut through all the defenses we have there.
“That is to say, we are defending the Ukrainians against this. It didn't work. So, the biggest danger not right now is not Putin. But I know I'm going to get pushback on that. It's not Putin, it's Joe Biden. Right now, we have a president inbound, President Trump, who will engage and try to ratchet down the drama. That's not so with Joe Biden. As a matter of fact, I don't even know if Joe Biden is the guy in charge,” he added.
“I think this is more like if you remember the movie 'Zoolander,' Derek Zoolander, this policy is a Derek Zoolander-type policy where there's no rationale to it. And Tony Blinken, Jake Sullivan have just decided they're going to do whatever it takes to lock down President Trump into this war. And the biggest danger to escalation is miscalculation. If a missile goes off into Poland or some other country, someone's obligated to respond. Things can get out of hand very quick.”
Moscow has said it regards Ukraine's firing of ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles into Russia as proof of direct U.S. and British involvement in the war. It says satellite targeting data and the actual programming of the missiles' flight paths must be done by NATO military personnel because Kyiv does not have the capabilities itself.
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
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