What in the heck is “tacit endorsement”? And why would American officials leak this kind of change in policy to the Times of London, even if it were on the level? There are a number of reasons to take this report with a grain of salt, even if it makes some sense in the wake of weeks of attacks by Russia on Ukrainian civil infrastructure:

The Pentagon has given a tacit endorsement of Ukraine’s long-range attacks on targets inside Russia after President Putin’s multiple missile strikes against Kyiv’s critical infrastructure.

Since daily assaults on civilians began in October, the Pentagon has revised its threat assessment of the war in Ukraine. Crucially, this includes new judgments about whether arms shipments to Kyiv might lead to a military confrontation between Russia and Nato.

This represents a significant development in the nine-month war between Ukraine and Russia, with Washington now likelier to supply Kyiv with longer-range weapons.

“We’re still using the same escalatory calculations but the fear of escalation has changed since the beginning,” a US defence source told The Times. “It’s different now.[“]

First grain of salt: Since this broke yesterday, there has been no follow-up reporting or confirmation of this new policy. A couple of other outlets have picked up the Times of London report, but no one has advanced the ball on it. One would think that if the Pentagon had decided to toss the dice on a Russian expansion of the war, that policy reversal might have had a couple of more people passing it along, especially to American media outlets.

Second grain of salt: Just this past week, the big news on US arms supply to Ukraine was that we limited the capability of our hyper-accurate HIMARS rocket systems to prevent the outcome that the Times of London suggests we’re now endorsing. The range on the missiles we have sent is restricted to 50 miles rather than the 200 miles the system normally has:

The U.S. since June has supplied Ukrainian forces with 20 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers, or Himars, and a large inventory of satellite-guided rockets with a range of almost 50 miles. Those rockets, known as the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, have been used to strike Russian ammunition depots, logistics supplies and command centers on Ukrainian territory.

But the Himars launchers have a unique feature intended to prevent them from becoming even more potent battlefield systems. U.S. officials say the Pentagon has modified the launchers so they can’t fire long-range missiles, including the U.S.’s Army Tactical Missile System rockets, or ATACMS, which have a range of nearly 200 miles.

The previously undisclosed modifications show the lengths the Biden administration has gone to balance its support for Ukraine’s forces against the risk of escalation with Moscow. They also reflect apprehensions among administration officials that their Ukrainian partner might stop keeping its promise not to strike Russian territory with U.S.-provided weapons.

Third grain of salt: The risks of escalation are likely growing rather than receding. Vladimir Putin’s ground and conventional air forces are a shadow of the threat we assumed them to be in the beginning of this invasion. The Ukrainians are grinding both into mud at the moment. However, Russia still has its navy, including a very dangerous submarine fleet, plus its intermediate and long-range missiles. Putin may well end up seeing a broader war against NATO as a way to justify a defeat — in fact, he’s already selling the present war as just that. As his army slides closer and closer to annihilation, Putin’s last chance is to threaten a wider war to get the West to impose terms on Ukraine to avoid it.

Now, a couple of reasons to think this may be on the level:

First, it may well be that the US has decided to pre-empt that strategy by demonstrating that the West isn’t going to intervene at all, regardless of Putin’s threats. In that sense, Putin’s threats may have backfired by getting NATO to stiffen its spine in the face of massive atrocities committed by Putin and the Russians. One piece of evidence for that theory: Germany actually has given a public if somewhat gauzy green light to Ukraine to hit targets within Russia. Reuters picked up this statement from Berlin on Wednesday, via Google Translate:

According to the federal government, Ukraine has the right to defend itself not only on its own territory. Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit pointed out in Berlin on Wednesday that the country had been under attack from Russia for more than nine months. “Ukraine has a vested right to self-defense stemming from Article 51 of the UN Charter,” he said, adding: “Ukraine is not obliged to limit defense efforts to its own territory.” Otherwise, he did not want to evaluate the reports of explosions at Russian air force bases. There are concerns in security circles that Russia could escalate its attacks on Ukraine in retaliation.

Second, we have seen a series of blasts at Russian air bases this week, all of which are well out of range of even the unrestricted HIMARS missiles. If Ukraine conducted those attacks, that would be an infiltration/sabotage mission rather than a direct attack. It still would escalate the war, at least in terms of Russian damage, and likely would not have taken place without some cooperation or at least so-called “tacit endorsement” from Kyiv’s Western allies. (On Thursday, though, Bloomberg reported that the US was growing unhappy with Ukrainian attempts to expand the war.)

Third, the US and its allies may have decided that the only way to get Russia to stop its genocidal attacks on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure is to allow Ukraine to bloody Putin’s nose somewhere outside of Ukraine. Thus far, the only costs for Putin in these missile attacks on civilians has been fiscal and reputational, neither of which deters Putin in the least. If Ukraine can rattle Russians with attacks deep in the heart of the country on its military bases and other strategic targets, the political costs will start adding up a lot faster for Putin and his oligarch clique.

According to ISW, Putin’s already playing a desperate game to keep his rabid uber-nationalists and the Ministry of Defense from chewing him to pieces:

Putin’s positioning in the Russian information space continues to oscillate between supporting the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) and backing the nationalist and pro-war milblogger community. Putin stated that the Russian MoD “behaves transparently” and properly reflects the “stable” progress of the “special military operation” in its daily reports.[6] Putin, however, then proceeded to undermine the Russian MoD when responding to a question about persistent problems with supplying the army and mobilization, noting that the Russian MoD informed him that the Russian Armed Forces has solved most of its debilitating issues.[7] Putin also told journalists: “You cannot trust anyone. You can only trust me,” when responding to a question about whether Russians should trust Russian MoD or sources operating on the frontlines.[8] Putin’s statements seemingly indicate that he is distancing himself from the milblogger community, which largely reports or obtains information from the frontlines. Putin’s statement on the transparency of the Russian MoD briefs—which the Russian milblogger community heavily criticizes for its inaccuracies and censorship—may aim to blunt such critiques or could be an effort to deflect the blame for military failures in Ukraine onto the Russian MoD, or both.

Putin likely attempts to preserve the position he has tried to occupy throughout his reign, in which he is seemingly aware of all Russian problems while not being directly responsible for them. Putin has long established the Russian MoD as a scapegoat for his failures, but the quasi-official milblogger community may pose a threat to his pretense of ignorance of problems. Putin remains in a predicament in which he relies on the support of the nationalist community to rally support behind his war in Ukraine, but must also mitigate the risk of angering the nationalists by failing to deliver their unrealistic and unattainable visions for the Russian military campaign. Putin, thus, needs to continue to play the part of the ultimate arbiter of the truth to manage the prominence of the quasi-official sources while simultaneously appealing to them in critiquing his very own security institutions. He remains unlikely to shut down the independent milblogger community but equally unlikely to commit fully to supporting it or pursuing its preferred extremist courses of action.

Imagine what a few successful strikes by Ukraine inside Russia will do to that balancing act. Then again, if the West really has given “tacit endorsement” to such a strategy to get Putin to withdraw, they’d better imagine what an unmitigated Russian defeat will mean for Putin in this environment and what may follow afterward. At this point, none of the options look pretty.