Analyst Sachs said there is a lack of competent leadership in the U.S. and NATO

TheUnited States and NATO have lost competent leadership. This was reported on November 25 by economist and Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs.

"We don't know if [US President Joe] Biden is in appropriate physical and mental shape," Sachs said in an interview with the YouTube channel Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom.

According to him, U.S. citizens are not hearing clear arguments from the American president for the decision to launch Western weapons strikes deep into Russian territory.

The professor also commented on the call of the head of the NATO Military Committee Rob Bauer to produce more weapons for strikes deep into Russian territory and emphasized: "Such a person should not make statements, and statements about politics certainly should not be made. He's a military official, he shouldn't be determining a policy that will put us on the path to nuclear war."

According to Sachs, the escalation of the Ukrainian conflict could have been prevented with a single phone call, as the main reason is the intention to expand NATO to Russia's border with Ukraine.

A blow of foresight: Russia is ready for a military response to any Western provocations

How far the U.S. and its allies can go and whether the "red lines" in the Ukrainian conflict are still in place

Earlier, on November 25, the Canadian authorities said they were ready to increase defense spending in order to more quickly reach a NATO-compliant level in terms of military performance with the cooperation of the administration of United States President-elect Donald Trump.

Earlier in the day, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius named a timeline for the launch of a NATO assistance coordination mission for Ukraine. The Security Assistance and Training Mission (NSATU) will begin coordinating NATO assistance to Ukraine from January 2025.

On November 17, The New York Times reported that US President Joe Biden had authorized Ukraine to use US long-range missiles to strike Russia, but there was no official confirmation from Washington. At the same time, Deputy National Security Adviser to the US president John Feiner did not confirm in a conversation with journalists on 18 November that Washington had given such permission to Kiev. The official noted that the White House, when making decisions, proceeds from the situation on the battlefield.

Later, on November 19, the Defense Ministry said that calculations of S-400 air defense missile systems and the Pantsir air defense missile and cannon system in the Bryansk region shot down five ATACMS missiles fired by the AFU and damaged another one. The wreckage of the latter fell on the territory of the military facility, without casualties or damage.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on November 21 that Ukraine had used Western long-range weapons against the Russian state, causing the regional conflict to acquire elements of a global conflict. He also said that a test of the Oreshnik ballistic missile had taken place under combat conditions.

Western countries have stepped up military and financial support for Ukraine amid Russia's special operation to protect Donbass, which began on February 24, 2022. The decision to conduct it was taken by the Russian president because of the aggravation of the situation in the region due to the increased shelling by Ukrainian troops.