On Sunday, news broke that President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use long-range American missiles to strike deeper into Russian territory. After the US gave Ukraine the greenlight to strike targets on the Russian side of the border earlier this year, the Ukrainian government and its biggest cheerleaders in Washington have been pressuring the president to support longer-range strikes—especially after Ukraine launched its invasion of Russia’s Kursk region. Sunday, they got their wish. On Tuesday, the first missile was launched at a target in Russia’s Bryansk region.

This move has many in the West concerned. Back in September, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a change to Russia’s nuclear doctrine. According to the changes, the Kremlin now considers an attack on Russia carried out by a non-nuclear state with the support of a nuclear-armed power to be a joint attack. Also, under the new doctrine, a conventional attack that poses a “critical threat to Russian sovereignty” now meets the official threshold to trigger a Russian nuclear response. Yesterday, those changes were made official.