Washington is not authorizing Kyiv to carry out long-range strikes with U.S.-supplied weapons on locations far from the border with Ukraine, such as Moscow, U.S. President Joe Biden told ABC News on June 6.
Unconfirmed reports emerged earlier in June that Ukraine had used U.S.-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia for the first time, days after Washington allowed Kyiv to use some American weapons to strike inside Russia across the border from Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts.
Ukraine said that the original ban on striking targets in Russia prevented an attack on Russian forces as they were building up before crossing the border into Kharkiv Oblast in the renewed Russian offensive that began on May 10.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on June 2 said the U.S. should also lift the ban on long-range strikes in order to protect lives, arguing that airfields deep inside Russia are used to launch strikes on Ukraine.
Biden did not directly answer a question from ABC News on whether U.S.-supplied weapons have already been used to strike inside Russian territory.
Instead, he responded that the weapons are "authorized to be used in proximity to the border when they're being used on the other side of the border to attack specific targets in Ukraine."
"We're not authorizing strikes 200 miles into Russia and we're not authorizing strikes on Moscow, on the Kremlin," Biden said.
When asked whether the reaction of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the strikes inside Russia concerns him, Biden responded that he has known Putin "for over 40 years" and has been "concerned" by him for 40 years.
"He's a dictator, and he's struggling to make sure he holds his country together while still keeping this assault going," Biden said.
The U.S. is authorizing Ukrainian strikes "just across the border, where they're receiving significant fire from conventional weapons used by the Russians to go into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians."
Elsa Court
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