Biden Allows Ukraine to Strike Russia With Long-Range U.S. Missiles
With two months left in office, the president for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use the system known as ATACMS to help defend its forces in the Kursk region of Russia.
President Biden has authorized the first use of U.S.-supplied long-range missiles by Ukraine for strikes inside Russia, U.S. officials said.
The weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, the officials said.
Mr. Biden’s decision is a major change in U.S. policy. The choice has divided his advisers, and his shift comes two months before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine.
Allowing the Ukrainians to use the long-range missiles, known as the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, came in response to Russia’s surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight, officials said.
Mr. Biden began to ease restrictions on the use of U.S.-supplied weapons on Russian soil after Russia launched a cross-border assault in May in the direction of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
To help the Ukrainians defend Kharkiv, Mr. Biden allowed them to use the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which have a range of about 50 miles, against Russian forces directly across the border. But Mr. Biden did not allow the Ukrainians to use longer-range ATACMS, which have a range of about 190 miles, in defense of Kharkiv.
While the officials said they do not expect the shift to fundamentally alter the course of the war, one of the goals of the policy change, they said, is to send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them.
The officials said that while the Ukrainians were likely to use the missiles first against Russian and North Korean troops that threaten Ukrainian forces in Kursk, Mr. Biden could authorize them to use the weapons elsewhere.
Some U.S. officials said they feared that Ukraine’s use of the missiles across the border could prompt President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to retaliate with force against the United States and its coalition partners.
But other U.S. officials said they thought those fears were overblown.
The Russian military is launching a major assault by an estimated 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, on dug-in Ukrainian positions in Kursk with the goal of retaking all of the Russian territory that the Ukrainians seized in August.
The Ukrainians could use the ATACMS missiles to strike Russian and North Korean troop concentrations, key pieces of military equipment, logistics nodes, ammunition depots and supply lines deep inside Russia.
Doing so could help the Ukrainians blunt the effectiveness of the Russian-North Korean assault.
Whether to arm Ukraine with long-range ATACMS has been an especially sensitive subject since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Some Pentagon officials opposed giving them to the Ukrainians because they said the U.S. Army had limited supplies. Some White House officials feared that Mr. Putin would widen the war if they gave the missiles to the Ukrainians.
Supporters of a more aggressive posture toward Moscow say Mr. Biden and his advisers have been too easily intimidated by Mr. Putin’s hostile rhetoric, and they say that the administration’s incremental approach to arming the Ukrainians has disadvantaged them on the battlefield.
Proponents of Mr. Biden’s approach say that it had largely been successful at averting a violent Russian response.
Allowing long-range strikes on Russian territory using American missiles could change that equation.
In August, the Ukrainians launched their own cross-border assault into the Kursk region, where they seized a swath of Russian territory.
Since then, U.S. officials have become increasingly concerned about the state of the Ukrainian army, which has been stretched thin by simultaneous Russian assaults in the east, Kharkiv and now Kursk….
https://archive.is/5NLwU