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Part 23: The War in Ukraine: Self-Deterrence and Survival

Chapter 85: The Sanctuary: A War with Hands Tied

"Juice" felt the familiar, violent shiver run through his aging MiG-29. He pulled the stick hard, throwing the Soviet-era jet into a gut-wrenching turn that pressed him deep into his seat. The G-suit inflated, crushing against his legs and stomach. The cockpit—a cluttered, cramped space filled with glowing, flickering dials and warning lights—was filled with the frantic, ear-splitting screech of the radar warning receiver. To a civilian, it sounded like a fire alarm caught in an echoing metal box; to Major Andrii Pilshchykov, one of Ukraine's most vocal and celebrated fighter pilots, it was the digital scream of a predator locking eyes on its prey.

Somewhere high above, in the thin, cold air, sixty kilometers away and safely behind the internationally recognized Russian border, a Russian Su-35 "Flanker-E" had him painted. The Russian jet was a monster of modern avionics, its Irbis-E PESA radar capable of tracking thirty targets at 200 kilometers, an all-seeing eye of Sauron that could see Juice long before Juice could ever see it. The Russian pilot wasn't even engaging in a dogfight; he was effectively commuting. He had launched a long-range R-37M air-to-air missile from the safety of deep Russian airspace—an impossible distance for Juice's 1980s-era R-27s—and was likely already turning back for an early lunch, leaving the missile's active seeker to hunt the lonely Ukrainian jet.

Juice’s only options were desperate and ancient: evasive maneuvers, flaring chaff, and praying. He pointed the MiG's nose down, dumping speed and hugging the terrain, chaff and flares blossoming behind him in a desperate attempt to blind the incoming seeker. He survived, again. He landed his fuel-starved bird minutes later on a dispersed highway strip, drenched in cold sweat and shaking with the adrenaline of the hunted. His airframe felt like it was falling apart, the engine mounts stressed to their limit, but he was alive for another day.

Later that evening, in a briefing room cluttered with maps, empty energy drink cans, and the stale smell of cigarette smoke, the frustration was thicker than the air itself. Juice wasn't angry about the Russian pilot’s skill; he was incandescent with rage at the rules of the game.

He pulled up a digital map of the border region on a projector screen. "Look," he told the visiting Western journalist, his finger stabbing at a location just forty kilometers inside Russia. "The Belgorod airfield. We know exactly where they are. We can see them on Google Earth, in real time. The Su-34s line up there every morning like taxis at a rank. They take off, climb to 30 thousand feet inside Russian territory, launch their glide bombs at our guys in Kharkiv and Avdiivka, and land back home for dinner. They are safe. Completely safe."

"So why don't you strike the airfield?" the journalist asked, baffled.

Juice laughed, a short, bitter sound devoid of humor. "With what? My MiG? The S-400 air defense net over the border would eat me alive before I could even cross the line. With HIMARS? The Americans programmed the launchers so they literally cannot fire into Russian territory, no matter what we input into the targeting system. With ATACMS? We don't have them yet, and if we did, the White House says Russian soil is sacred ground. Ukraine has to promise never to strike inside Russia, under threat of having aid cut off."

For two long years, this was the paradox that defined the war for the Ukrainian armed forces. The West had, slowly and reluctantly, supplied Ukraine with increasingly lethal weapon systems—from HIMARS to Storm Shadows to the eventual, distant promise of F-16s—but nearly every single system arrived with a digital or legal padlock. They came with the "Geofence."

Washington’s overarching fear of "escalation"—the terrifying, existential specter of a direct NATO-Russia conflict, potentially nuclear—had mutated into a devastating policy of self-deterrence. The Americans drew an imaginary line on the map along the internationally recognized border of the Russian Federation. West of that line, in occupied Ukraine, it was a free-fire zone where Russians could kill and be killed. East of that line, inside the Russian Federation, was a sanctuary.

It created a surreal, morally asymmetrical absurdity. The aggressor, invading a neighbor with thousands of tanks and jets, enjoyed a vast, unmolested rear area guaranteed not by his own superior defenses, but by the lawyers and policy analysts of his enemy’s most powerful allies. The Russian logistics officer in Rostov could sleep in a warm bed, load ammunition trains under floodlights, and park regiments of attack helicopters in open rows, knowing with absolute certainty that the Ukrainians were forbidden from touching him.

Juice looked at the ceiling of the briefing room, thinking of his friends dying in the trenches under the incessant rain of glide bombs—bombs launched by planes he was forbidden to shoot down at their source.

"We are in a boxing match," he said quietly, his voice hollow, "where we are told we can only block punches. We are forbidden from ever hitting the opponent’s face or striking his arms. And then the referee wonders why the fight is taking so long. They’ve tied one of our hands behind our back."

The Discourse 85: The Doctrine of the Sanctuary

85.1 Escalation Management vs. Military Necessity
The Western restriction on striking legitimate military targets inside the internationally recognized borders of Russia—what military analysts term the "Sanctuary Doctrine"—stands as the single most controversial strategic decision of the war. Its intellectual root lies in the Biden Administration's overarching strategy of "escalation management." The primary goal of U.S. policy was legally dual-purposed: to ensure Ukraine did not suffer a total defeat, while simultaneously ensuring that the war did not spill over into a direct conflict between NATO and the Russian Federation.

Washington assessed that providing Ukraine with the means to strike deep into the Russian heartland—hitting strategic airbases, energy infrastructure, or command centers near Moscow—would cross a "red line" for Vladimir Putin, potentially triggering the use of tactical nuclear weapons or retaliatory strikes on NATO supply hubs in Poland. This prioritization of geopolitical stability over military efficacy forced the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fight with a structural disadvantage never before seen in the history of modern warfare: a nation fighting a total war for survival while being politically forbidden from attacking the enemy's source of power.

85.2 The Operational Consequence: The Glide Bomb Crisis
The lethal cost of this policy was paid most clearly during the defensive battles of 2023 and 2024 for Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar. Russian forces, realizing they could not achieve air superiority over Ukraine due to surface-to-air missiles, adapted by keeping their aircraft well back from the front lines, remaining deep inside Russian sovereign airspace. From this "sanctuary," tens of thousands of feet above Belgorod and Rostov, they launched UMPK "glide bombs"—crude, heavy gravity bombs fitted with pop-out wings and guidance kits, capable of traveling 60 to 70 kilometers.

Because Western policy forbade Ukraine from shooting down these aircraft inside Russian airspace using long-range Patriot missiles (which are American-supplied) or striking the airfields where these jets were based using ATACMS, the Russian Air Force acted with absolute impunity. They utilized the diplomatic shield of their own border as a protected firing position to methodically pulverize Ukrainian fortifications. The Sanctuary Doctrine effectively turned the Russian border into an invincible forcefield, behind which the aggressor could reload and fire at will.

85.3 The Geo-Fenced Arsenal
When the United States finally supplied the HIMARS in the summer of 2022, and later the long-range ATACMS missiles in late 2023, it did so with extraordinary technological shackles. Reports confirmed that the HIMARS launchers provided to Ukraine had been physically and software-modified to prevent them from firing onto Russian coordinates, regardless of the operator's intent or the target's validity. When the 300km-range ATACMS were eventually approved, it was under strict (though officially secret) agreements that they strike only occupied Ukrainian territory (like Crimea or the Donbas), and never logistics hubs inside Russia like Voronezh or strategic airfields like Engels.

This signaled to the Russian General Staff that the West was successfully self-deterring. It granted the Russians a priceless military gift: operational certainty. Russian logistics commanders knew exactly how far back they had to move their headquarters and ammunition dumps to be 100% safe (roughly 85km to outrange GMLRS). This allowed them to optimize their supply lines with a level of safety that no army at war should ever enjoy.

85.4 A Double Standard of Sovereignty
Critics of the sanctuary doctrine, including prominent military historians and Eastern European leaders, argue that it relies on a flawed moral and legal premise. Under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, a nation under attack has the absolute inherent right of self-defense, which includes the right to strike military targets on the aggressor's territory to degrade their capacity to wage war. By forbidding this, the West essentially enforced a double standard of sovereignty: Ukraine’s borders were fluid and could be turned into a battlefield by Russian tanks, but Russia’s borders were inviolable. This asymmetry did not "manage" escalation; it prolonged the war. It transformed the conflict into a pure war of attrition fought almost exclusively on Ukrainian soil, ensuring the maximum destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure and economy while leaving the Russian war machine physically and economically intact. As retired U.S. General Ben Hodges argued, granting an enemy a "sanctuary" is militarily incoherent; wars are won by destroying the enemy's ability to wage them, which invariably lies in his rear.