Biden is the first to allow an attack on Russia with US long range weapons
U.S. policy shift in the fight against Russia during the August 24 attack on Ukraine’s territorial area, as observed by a Ukrainian soldier near the frontline in Ukranian
I don’t want to say I’m happy. The help of the U.S. has still been invaluable. But it has not been enough to let us win the war,” he said. If the restrictions had been lifted a year ago, how many lives would have been saved?
Maksym Sviezhentsev, who is a Ukrainian soldier near the frontline in Ukranian, hopes the Trump administration doesn’t repeal the authorization for the ATACMS.
The policy shift comes just over two months before President-elect Donald Trump will return to the White House. Trump has criticized the amount of aid given to Ukraine in its fight against Russia and claimed he could end the war in 24 hours, though he has not explained how.
The war began in Russia’s Kursk region in August, after a surprise incursion by Ukrainian forces. The attack was viewed as a breakthrough for Ukraine and a setback for Russia. In October, a large group of troops from North Korea arrived in Kursk to assist Russia in its fight against the Ukrainian incursion.
Zelenskyy said Russian President Vladimir Putin responds to strength, not diplomacy. “We need to be strong. We need to force Russia to end their war by spending time in Moscow, not talking to someone there.
Russia launched 210 missiles and drones at Ukraine on Sunday, Zelenskyy said, attacking the energy system and other critical infrastructure in what he described as one of Russia’s largest attacks in the war so far.
In his nightly video address on Sunday, Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities will be key to its victory. “Today, there’s a lot of talk in the media about us receiving permission for respective actions,” he said. “But strikes are not carried out with words. Things are not announced. Missiles will speak for themselves.
The authorization marks a shift in U.S. policy. The Biden administration was hesitant to allow Ukrainian missiles into Russian territory because they feared that it would escalate the war.
The missiles can travel 190 miles. Their use would enable the Ukrainian army to strike Russia’s weapons depots and airfields, as well as stopping Russian forces from attacking Ukrainian cities.
The US official said that British officials would likely allow Ukraine to use their long-range missiles in Russia. 155 miles is how far these missiles can travel. The British needed U.S. approval because these missiles contain U.S. components.
The U.S. official, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly about the decision, said the U.S. is allowing Ukraine to use the weapons to target in and around Kursk — the same region where some 10,000 North Korean troops were recently deployed, according to the U.S. and its allies.
Acceding to Ukraine’s longstanding pleas for permission to fire American missiles into Russian territory may be the last thing President Biden can do for the Ukrainians — or on any other foreign front, for that matter — before leaving office. That makes for dodgy optics, because it saddles an incoming administration with a policy shift Biden himself long resisted because he thought it carried too great a risk of plunging America into a direct confrontation with Russia.
The argument against allowing long-range strikes with NATO missiles is that this is the one action against which Vladimir Putin has drawn an explicit red line. “This escalates tensions to a qualitatively new level,” said the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov. Donald Trump and his associates have said that World War III does not mean it, but Russia might retaliate in some way against the United States and its allies.
But it was arguably something he would have done in any case, given that Russia was preparing to throw 10,000 imported North Korean troops into the war and had just launched its largest air attack on Ukraine in months.
