Pressure mounts on Biden to let Ukraine strike Russia with US weapons

Let Ukraine use Western weapons to strike targets in Russia.

This message, long a priority for kyiv and its strongest supporters, is now being expressed by a growing number of Western leaders. The United States has so far remained insensitive to these pressures, which puts it at odds with its allies – and in the company of the Kremlin, which has warned against such a move.

But there are signs that this could soon change.

Debate within the Biden administration on the issue is ongoing, and some senior officials favor lifting restrictions on how Ukraine uses Washington-supplied weapons, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News. subject.

This debate has taken on urgency since Russia launched a new cross-border offensive in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region earlier this month, and kyiv warned it could also amass troops for another incursion into the neighboring region of Sumy.

Ukraine feels handicapped, arguing that restrictions on its use of Western-supplied weapons have given Moscow an unfair advantage.

Russia “can use the military infrastructure on its territory for the war against Ukraine without any obstacles,” said Mykola Bielieskov, a researcher at Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies, a government research group.

“As a result, there is a powerful asymmetry,” kyiv-based Bielieskov told NBC News on Wednesday. “We’ve been talking about it for a long time. “It’s just that the Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region made this clear.”

The new urgency in kyiv, which is still awaiting crucial U.S. military aid, has prompted a growing number of Western officials to support the idea of ​​removing restrictions on targets in Russia.

For much of the war, kyiv's partners have drawn a firm red line in allowing Ukraine to use the weapons they supply on Russian territory, fearing an escalation by the Kremlin that could transform the conflict in World War III.

The Biden administration has been consistent in this stance, perhaps fearing that Russian President Vladimir Putin could retaliate with nuclear weapons – which he has regularly threatened throughout the conflict.

But with Ukraine outnumbered, outgunned and behind schedule, kyiv has publicly pleaded for its allies to ease their restrictions.

And it seems to work.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday became the latest high-profile backer of the idea. He suggested that Ukraine should be allowed to strike military targets in Russia from which missiles were being fired into Ukrainian territory, a seemingly compromise position.

He was joined by German leader Olaf Scholz, who had resisted the idea but accepted the concept on Tuesday.

It follows repeated calls from NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg to let Ukraine use Western-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia, saying failure to do so hampers kyiv's ability “to defend “. It's a view shared by a number of European members of the alliance, including the United Kingdom, Sweden and Poland.

In previous debates within the Biden administration over how far to go to arm Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and CIA Director William Burns took a bolder stance, supporting the provision of longer-range missiles and other weapons – and have often prevailed after appeals from European lawmakers and governments.

And on Wednesday, Blinken appeared to leave room for change on that issue, too.

“We neither encouraged nor permitted strikes outside Ukraine. Ukraine, as I have said before, must make its own decisions on how best to defend itself effectively,” he said during a trip to Europe that will include a NATO meeting on Thursday. According to him, one of the “characteristics” of American support for Ukraine “has been adaptation.”

“As conditions have changed, as the battlefield has changed, as what Russia does has changed,” he added. “We have also adapted and adjusted and I am confident that we will continue to do so.”

The Kremlin has sought to ward off the move, with Putin warning European NATO states on Tuesday that they were playing with fire and risking provoking “global conflict”.

Moscow recently held exercises aimed at simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons, a likely signal to the West against deeper involvement in Ukraine.

The risk of escalation appears to be exactly what keeps Biden reluctant to authorize the use of U.S. weapons on Russian soil, said Christopher Tuck, a conflict and security expert at King's College London.

“Putin's comments should be seen in this light: he is trying to stoke the fears of those who believe that crossing this American red line would take NATO relations with Russia into a new and dangerous phase,” he said. he declared.

It is clear from the growing frustration in Ukraine that it will not violate the ban unless the United States softens its stance.

“We cannot, and this is a fact, risk the support of our partners,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday. “That is why we do not use our partners' weapons on the territory of the Russian Federation. And we call: give us the opportunity to retaliate against their military forces.”

His comments come after a group of lawmakers from both parties publicly urged the White House last week to give kyiv the green light.

“Ukrainians have not been able to defend themselves because of the current government policy. It is essential that the Biden administration provide Ukraine's military leaders with the ability to conduct the full range of operations necessary to respond to Russia's unprovoked attack on their sovereign territory,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

But the Biden administration's fears could be heightened by Ukraine's increasingly bold use of its own weapons, primarily drones, to strike strategic targets deep inside Russia, such as oil refineries. oil.

A Ukrainian drone on Sunday targeted a long-range radar deep in Russia, part of the country's ballistic missile early warning system, a Ukrainian intelligence official told NBC News. The official asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to release details of the strike, which appears to be the second in a week against infrastructure used by Moscow to monitor Ukraine's military activities.

Although the United States will likely eventually lift restrictions on the use of its weapons in Russia, Tuck said, Ukraine will need to be careful about the type of targets it attacks and avoid causing civilian casualties.

It is also important to put any US decision into perspective, he added.

“Russian forces have been advancing slowly in Kharkiv Oblast, so it is likely that the United States will make a timely decision to make a militarily useful contribution to the fighting there,” Tuck said. “But this is not a decision that will change the course of the war.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com