Ukraine can create a deep 400km no-go buffer zone if US takes off the shackles

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, former Commanding Officer 1st Royal Tank Regiment, writes on how Ukraine can resist Russia and hit where it hurts - with the help of Nato.

Ukrainian armoured forces can create a 400km deep no-go zone for Russian troops in Russia, if the US government takes the shackles off Ukraine's defence of its homeland by authorising strikes into Russia.

If Ukraine can restrict the Russian forces' freedom of manoeuvre in the border areas, as it did to the Black Sea Fleet, it can create the conditions for the Ukrainian army to get on the front foot.

This is at a time when Russia launches an anti-satellite weapon into space and conducts drills to test its tactical nuclear weapons close to the Ukrainian border.

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This sort of provocation must not go unanswered, or it will only embolden Putin further.

Russia is no doubt fearful those US and UK spy satellites, which will be providing the intelligence for the precision strikes into Russia, must be masked to spare strategic assets.

But they are too late, and we must make the most of this advantage while we can by providing target information to Kyiv.

Ukraine has been fighting with at least one hand tied behind its back for the last two years, unable to hit strategic targets in Russia, when Russia has had carte blanche to attack whatever it wants from wherever it wants.

Let us not forget that the invasion on 24 February 22 was launched from Belarus, which is allegedly independent from Moscow.

Russia during this time has used all its hypersonic and other weaponry, fired from deep inside Russia to attack civilian targets and only last week a shopping centre in the second city of Kharkiv was hit – no military hardware there!

If Ukraine is allowed to attack airfields from where the aircraf, and drones and missiles launched, it would significantly affect the Russian onslaught.

Similarly, if the ammunition supply routes to the Russian front can be cut, the massive imbalance, with Russia firing five artillery rounds for every one Ukrainian, can be quickly addressed.

No doubt the strategic prize for Kyiv is the Kerch Bridge.

Denial of this bridge would be hugely symbolic if not necessarily a battlefield necessity, and for Putin to see his much-cherished causeway lying in the Black Sea may be the straw which breaks his back, or at least all those onlookers who are now getting to hear that around half a million Russian men have perished, as he pursues his pet project deemed the 'Special Military Operation'.

The US and UK had no trouble shooting down Iranian missiles aimed at Israeli cities, but is not content to shoot down Russian missiles aimed at Ukrainian cities.

The war in Ukraine is possibly going to lead to war in Europe which we will all no doubt be dragged into, which is not the case for the conflict in Israel, however shocking it appears.

Nato must plan to put boots on the ground and in the air to hold the Russians, if all else fails.

We are not quite there yet and, as the fighting is still finally balanced, whatever small advances Moscow claims, cutting the head off the Russian snake by attacking Russia itself with Western weaponry must be the next sensible step?

Many European leaders seem cowed by the virtually everyday threats of nuclear attack from the Kremlin.

But after threatening these attacks so often over the last few years, even the most cautious and timid leader must realise they are just bluff and bluster.

In the nuclear space, the West has at least parity and probably advantage - and Putin knows this.

The West has hitherto been too slow to authorise sophisticated weaponry like tanks and precision artillery that their impact is diminished to a point of little advantage, and this must change.

Time for Nato leaders to be bold before it is too late and we are all having to fight a tyrannical army once again in the streets and towns of Europe.

In order to avoid having to put Nato troops on the ground in Ukraine and to avoid another war in Europe, as we approach the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the US, UK and all allies must take the shackles off Ukraine and allow them to use the full advantage of the sophisticated long-range precision weaponry they now have, to hit Putin where it really hearts, in the 'guts' of Russia.