To leave Ukraine use Western weapons to attack domestic targets Russia.
This message, long ago priority for Kyiv and its fiercest supporters, is now expressed by a growing number of Western leaders. The United States has remained until now indifferent to this pressureputting him at odds with his allies – and in the company of the Kremlin, which warned against such a measure.
But there are signs that this could soon change.
Debate within the Biden administration on the issue is ongoing, and some senior officials support lifting restrictions on how Ukraine uses weapons supplied by Washington, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.
This debate has gained urgency since Russia has launched a new cross-border offensive in the northeast region of Kharkiv, Ukraine earlier this month, and Kiev warned it could also be gathering troops for another incursion in neighboring Sumy.
Ukraine feels aggrieved, arguing that restrictions on the use of Western-supplied weapons have given Moscow an unfair advantage.
Russia “can use the military infrastructure on its territory for war against Ukraine without any obstacles,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies of Ukraine, a government research group.
“As a result, there is a powerful asymmetry,” Kiev-based Bielieskov told NBC News on Wednesday. “This has been talked about for a long time. It turns out that the Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region clearly showed this.”
The new urgency from Kiev, which is still waiting for crucial US military aid, has led a growing list of Western officials to support the idea of removing restrictions on attacking targets inside Russia.
For much of the war, Kiev’s partners drew a solid red line on allowing Ukraine to use the weapons it supplies inside Russian territory, fearing an escalation by the Kremlin that could turn the conflict into a Third World War.
The Biden administration has been consistent in this stance, perhaps concerned that Russian President Vladimir Putin could retaliate using nuclear weapons – which he has regularly threatened during the conflict.
But with Ukraine outnumbered, outgunned and at a disadvantage, Kiev has publicly advocated for its allies to loosen their restrictions.
And it seems to be working.
French President Emmanuel Macron became the latest supporter of the idea on Tuesday. He suggested that Ukraine should be allowed to strike military targets inside Russia from which missiles were being fired into Ukrainian territory, an apparently compromise position.
He was joined by German leader Olaf Scholz, who resisted the idea but agreed to the concept on Tuesday.
This follows repeated calls by NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg to allow Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia, saying that failure to do so undermines Kiev’s ability “to defend itself”. It is a view shared by several European members of the alliance, including the United Kingdom, Sweden and Poland.
In previous debates within the Biden administration over how far to go in arming Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director William Burns have taken a bolder stance, supporting the supply of long-range missiles and other weapons — and often prevailed after appeals from European lawmakers and governments.
And on Wednesday, Blinken appeared to leave room for change on this issue as well.
“We do not encourage or permit attacks outside of Ukraine. Ukraine, as I have said before, has to make its own decisions about how best to defend itself effectively,” he said during a trip to Europe that will include a NATO meeting on Thursday. A “hallmark” of U.S. support for Ukraine, he said, “has been adaptation.”
“As conditions have changed, as the battlefield has changed, as what Russia does has changed,” Blinken added. “We have also adapted and adjusted and I am confident we will continue to do so.”
The Kremlin has sought to avoid the move, with Putin on Tuesday warning European NATO states that they were playing with fire and risking a “global conflict”.
Moscow recently organized exercises to simulate the use of tactical nuclear weapons, in a likely signal to the West against deeper involvement in Ukraine.
The risk of escalation appears to be exactly what has kept Biden reluctant to allow the use of American weapons on Russian soil, said Christopher Tuck, a conflict and security expert at King’s College London.
“Putin’s comments must be seen in this light: he is trying to stoke the fears of those who believe that crossing this US red line would take NATO’s relationship with Russia into a new and dangerous phase,” Tuck said.
It is clear from growing frustration in Ukraine that the country will not violate the ban unless the US softens its stance.
“We cannot, and this is a fact, risk the support of partners,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. “Therefore, we do not use our partners’ weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation. And we appeal: give us the opportunity to retaliate against your military forces.”
His comments came after a group of lawmakers from both parties last week publicly urged the White House to give Kiev the green light.
“The Ukrainians have not been able to defend themselves due to the current policy of the Administration. It is essential that the Biden administration allows Ukraine’s military leaders the ability to conduct the full range of operations necessary to respond to Russia’s unprovoked attack on their sovereign lands,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
But the Biden administration’s fears could be exacerbated by Ukraine’s increasingly bold use of its own weapons, mainly drones, to attack strategic targets inside Russia, such as oil refineries.
A Ukrainian drone targeted a long-range radar deep inside Russia that is part of the country’s ballistic missile early warning system on Sunday, a Ukrainian intelligence official told NBC News. The official wanted to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to disclose details of the attack, which appears to be the second in a week against the infrastructure used by Moscow to monitor Ukraine’s military activities.
While the U.S. is likely to eventually lift restrictions on the use of its weapons inside Russia, Tuck said, Ukraine would have to be careful about the types of targets it attacks and would have to avoid inflicting civilian casualties.
It’s also important to put any U.S. decision into perspective, he added.
“Russian forces have made slow progress in Kharkiv oblast, so it is likely that a U.S. decision will come in time to make a militarily useful contribution to the fight there,” Tuck said. “But it is not a decision that will change the course of the war.”
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
