WASHINGTON

EVEN LONG-RANGE NATO cruise missiles are dwarfed by Russia. The much-vaunted Anglo-French Storm Shadow couldn’t even make it to Moscow if launched from Ukraine. Russia is 9,000km end to end. It can absorb thousands of missile strikes without betraying a scratch. Attacking Russia without enormous strength in numbers and firepower is like throwing stones at the ocean.

Ukraine is struggling and as it struggles it calls for more and more war-winning weapons. Always just one more system.

First it was armored fighting vehicles and main battle tanks: we were told they would be a game changer; then it was artillery which would decimate Russian command and control; then sophisticated anti-aircraft systems to take down Russian missiles; then F16 jet fighters to win air superiority… all of thse were supposedly the key to victory. None of them appear to have had the effect of cheap corner-store drones. Now Ukraine is calling for cruise missiles, to strike deep into Russia. Five hundred kilometres deep. That’s about their range. Into a land that stretches across eleven time zones. A war winner?

NATO is dithering again. Like it has over everything it has provided to date.

And what happens when the Ukrainians ask for nukes?”