Some officials in Washington have told Kyiv the U.S. is keeping its restrictions on Ukraine using U.S.-made long-range weapons against Russian territory in order to not upend any future reset with Moscow, Politico reported, citing unnamed officials in the Biden administration.
However, one senior Ukrainian advisor also told Politico that there are signs that Biden may want to do “something big in Ukraine,” and possibly lift some restrictions before the election.
Kyiv has long argued that restrictions on the use of long-range weapons are stifling its war effort, while Washington has claimed that allowing Ukraine to hit deep into Russian territory with its weapons could be a cause for escalation.
Ukraine has dismissed these arguments and has amped up pressure to lift the ban in recent weeks following the Kursk incursion on Aug. 6. The White House has not budged on its position despite some U.S. politicians backing Kyiv’s demands.
Mike Pompeo, a former U.S. State Secretary in Donald Trump's administration, said U.S. President Joe Biden should not restrict Kyiv but instead send Ukraine the weapons it needs to win, in an X post on Aug. 24. He added that the Kursk incursion shows that a Ukrainian "defeat is not inevitable."
The U.S. permitted Ukraine in June to strike Russian military targets just across the border but maintained its ban on attacks deep inside Russia with long-range arms like ATACMS.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine’s capture of the Russian town of Sudzha, near Ukraine’s Sumy Oblast, shows that there are no red lines when it comes to Russian escalation. Ukraine has advanced some 35 kilometers into Russia’s Kursk Oblast and so far Moscow has not escalated the war.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Heorhii Tykhyi, said on Aug. 13 that the incursion aims to prevent Moscow from sending reinforcements to the front in Donetsk Oblast. It is also designed to disrupt Russian logistics and halt cross-border attacks in lieu of restriction on long-range strikes with Western arms.
Tykhyi said that the incursion would be "less necessary" if Kyiv were allowed to "fully utilize (its) long-range capabilities" against Russia.
The Pentagon said that Ukraine can use U.S. weapons in the incursion. However, the U.K. has reportedly not allowed Ukraine to use British-supplied Storm Shadow as part of the incursion, maintaining their policy of only permitting strikes within Ukrainian sovereign territory.
Kateryna Hodunova
