President Biden appears poised to clear the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep into Russian territory — as long as it does not use U.S.-supplied weapons, European officials say.
The issue, which has long been debated within the administration, will come to a head on Friday with the first official visit to the White House by new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Britain has already signaled to the United States that it is willing to allow Ukraine to use its long-range “Storm Shadow” missiles to strike Russian military targets far from the Ukrainian border, but it wants explicit permission from Biden to demonstrate a coordinated strategy with the United States and France, which makes a similar missile. U.S. officials say Biden has not made a decision but that Starmer will reach out to him on Friday.
If the president approves the move, it could help Ukraine maintain its position after seizing Russian territory, as it did during its surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. But Biden has been hesitant to allow Ukraine to use American weapons in the same way, particularly after warnings from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia could respond by helping Iran attack U.S. forces in the Middle East.
On Thursday, White House officials insisted there was no imminent decision on the use of the U.S.-made Army surface-to-surface tactical missile systems, known as ATACMS. But Biden himself has signaled that an easing of restrictions is on the horizon. He was asked on Tuesday whether he was willing to accede to increasingly insistent requests from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We’re working on that right now,” he said.
If Biden allows the British and French to go ahead, and if he also allows the use of ATACMS in the coming weeks, it could well be his last acceleration of military aid to Ukraine.
Quietly, Republican leaders in the Senate, especially Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, have been calling for an aggressive response, a sharp split with former President Donald J. Trump, who in Tuesday night’s presidential debate refused to declare that he wants Ukraine to win, or to say that Russia should get out of the roughly 20 percent of Ukraine it has seized since the war began.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued an unusually specific warning to the West, noting that the Ukrainians cannot operate long-range missiles on their own as they need Western technical help and satellite guidance.
“This will mean that NATO countries – the United States and European countries – are at war with Russia,” Putin was quoted as saying by the Kremlin as saying. “And if this is the case, taking into account the change in the nature of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that come our way.”
For the United States, assessing how much to believe Putin has been a difficult task. Throughout nearly 31 months of war, the pattern has been clear: At every stage, Biden has expressed concern that providing new weapons to Ukraine or allowing the Ukrainian military to fire on Russian territory would mean crossing one of Putin’s red lines.
In the early months of the war, Biden was reluctant to provide Ukraine with HIMARS artillery, then M1 Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets, and short- and then long-range ATACMS. But in each case, when the administration found that Putin seemed less willing to escalate the war than initially believed, it loosened the reins.
In the spring, Biden for the first time approved allowing Ukraine to fire on Russian artillery and other targets just across the Russian border, to avoid giving Putin’s forces a safe haven to attack cities and towns around Kharkiv. That permission was later expanded. But attacking border areas is essentially a defensive operation. Senior White House officials say there remains concern about using U.S. ATACMS to strike more than 60 miles or more inside Russia.
In classified briefings, U.S. intelligence officials have expressed deeper concerns about direct and visible U.S. involvement in Ukraine’s move to seize and hold positions near Kursk. There are signs, they have warned, that Russia could provide technological help that would allow Iran and its allied forces to attack U.S. forces in the Middle East. This week, the administration accused Iran of sending missiles to Russia for the first time for use in war, an allegation the Tehran government has denied.
In a series of meetings with senior government officials in recent weeks, Ukrainian officials have been arguing that their actual seizure of territory inside Russia proves that U.S. fears of crossing Russian red lines were exaggerated. The U.S., those Ukrainian officials argue, should allow Kiev to use American weapons to strike deeper into Russia.
Emerging from one such meeting in Kyiv on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters that he and Zelensky, joined by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, “discussed long-range fire, but also other things.”
“We will pass on what we have learned to President Biden, in my case, and to the Prime Minister, in David’s case. They will meet in a few days in Washington to discuss how our countries will continue to support Ukraine.”
To a growing number of military analysts and former U.S. officials, the administration’s reluctance makes no sense, especially since, they say, Ukraine’s incursion at Kursk has yet to prompt an escalatory response from Moscow.
“Easing restrictions on Western weapons will not lead to an escalation of Moscow’s offensive,” 17 former ambassadors and generals wrote in a letter to the government this week. “We know this because Ukraine is already attacking territories Russia considers its own, including Crimea and Kursk, with these weapons and Moscow’s response has not changed.”
Two weeks ago, senior Ukrainian officials were at the Pentagon to make a similar argument to that of Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III. Ukraine’s new defense minister, Rustem Umerov, argued that the Kursk incursion showed that Russia’s red lines were merely bluffs that had delayed Western efforts to help Ukraine.
With the Kursk raid, Mr. Umerov argued, Ukraine has shown it can invade, and even occupy, Russian territory without triggering a Third World War, according to two officials.
But U.S. officials say it’s too early to draw that conclusion, because there are many ways Putin could retaliate. During the meeting, Austin asked Umerov several questions about what sites inside Russia Ukraine would attack, seeking to ensure that Ukraine would focus on military sites such as airfields, but not power plants or other civilian infrastructure. Austin also asked his Ukrainian counterpart what target such attacks might achieve.
Mr Austin continues to believe that using US weapons for long-range strikes against Russia will not change the course of the war, in part because there are not enough ATACMS (British and French missiles) to sustain an attack.
Last Friday at Ramstein, a U.S. air base in Germany, Austin added that loosening the reins on Ukraine’s use of ATACMS would not solve one of the biggest problems facing Ukrainian cities and troops: so-called glide bombs dropped from Russian attack aircraft deep inside Russia.
“If we look at the battlefield today, we know that the Russians have moved their aircraft that use glider bombers beyond the range of the ATACMS,” Austin said.
The United States has already supplied Ukraine with several hundred long-range anti-aircraft missiles, but its stockpiles are running out. American officials are concerned that they will not be able to supply enough of such munitions to cause serious damage to a wide range of Russian targets.
Umerov’s response — delivered during the Pentagon meeting, officials said — was that even if ATACMS are not a game-changer, they can still be used to good effect to attack Russian sites inside Russia and disrupt Russian logistics.
“Strikes would help degrade Russian military capabilities, and Russia already uses Iranian, Chinese and North Korean weapons and components against targets in Ukraine,” said Seth G. Jones, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters Tuesday that Iran’s new shipment of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia sets a dangerous precedent that will likely lead to more shipments.
“One has to assume that if Iran provides Russia with these types of missiles, it is very likely that it will not be a good one-time deal,” he said. “This is a source of capability that Russia will try to take advantage of in the future.”
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