‘Fait Accompli’: France and Britain Lobbying U.S. to Allow Deep Missile Strikes on Russia Before Trump Administration

<p >French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are reportedly making a final attempt to persuade the Joe Biden administration to provide a green light for <a href=" target="_blank">joint attacks from Ukrainian territory</a> against targets across internationally recognised Russian territory. Citing sources in the British government, The Telegraph was the first to reported on these ongoing efforts, stating that talks on the issue were to take place in Paris. Both European states have delivered significant quantities of Scalp and Storm Shadow air launched cruise missiles to Ukraine, with France set to <a href=" target="_blank">deliver Mirage 2000 fighters </a>to the country capable of launching the former of the two missile classes. The complexity of the attacks requires an extensive presences of British and French forces on the ground in Ukraine to facilitate the attacks, while the missiles rely heavily on Western Bloc satellites, and particularly the American GPS network, for guidance while in flight. Such strikes are thus widely considered to be jointly launched by Western Bloc states and by Ukraine, and if expanded deep into Russia could pose a serious risk of escalation. Deeper missile strikes have been strongly supported by several other European states, with Denmark and the Netherlands which were the first to donate F-16 fighters and made clear that the <a href=" target="_blank">would support use </a>of the fighters in such attacks. </p><p ><img src=" title="Crashed Storm Shadow Missile Captured By Russian Forces"></p><p >President-elect Donald Trump has consistently made clear his opposition to further escalation or continuation of the war in Ukraine, with his election victory providing European states seeking larger scale attacks on Russia with a much more limited window to pursue this. The Joe Biden administration has itself taken a consistently far more moderate position than its more hawkish European allies, with the U.S. having refrained from providing Ukraine with weapons for deep strikes into Russia long after European states began to do so. The Biden administration was also <a href=" target="_blank">highly hesitant to provide </a>Ukraine with F-16 fighter aircraft, and only provided a green light for<a href=" target="_blank"> European states to provide</a> their older F-16s after an extensive lobbying campaign by multiple European countries. The provision of American Abrams tanks, too, was condoned only following extensive British and broader European pressure campaigns, with the United Kingdom, followed by Spain, Poland and others, having sought to provide their own tanks far earlier than the U.S. did. European leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer, who have long faced an uphill struggle to bring the U.S. deeper into the war, are only expected to face greater resistance under the new Trump administration. </p>