Ukraine pressures allies to allow it to use NATO weapons against Russian territory | International

Ukraine is focusing its diplomatic efforts on convincing its allies to allow its military to use NATO weapons against targets on Russian soil. kyiv has succeeded in the past in moving the red lines imposed on it by its Western partners, after months of negotiations. Russia's new offensive on Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, has accelerated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's diplomatic move to allay U.S. and European fears of possible escalation if weapons supplied by them targeted Russian sovereign territory.

The Kremlin launched a lightning offensive on May 10 from the Russian province of Belgorod against Kharkiv, located just 30 kilometers from the border. The advance of Russian troops has been steady but at the cost of heavy losses, largely due to the fact that their artillery, aircraft and drones can operate from positions in neighboring Russia. The White House received a formal request from kyiv last week to use U.S. weapons and other aid against Russian territory, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown confirmed to media.

Brown declined to specify what actions Ukraine was requesting to take in Russia, but his remarks could be interpreted as a request involving information from U.S. satellites on the location of enemy bases. Intelligence provided by the Pentagon has been key to identifying the location of Russian troops and military installations in Ukraine, but it has so far avoided providing that data on Russian soil. Western centers of conflict analysis, such as the Institute for the Study of War, have noted that Ukraine's inability to respond across the border places its military in a weak position to contain the offensive in Kharkiv.

Since last week, Zelenskiy has given several interviews in which he stressed the need for Ukraine to be able to defend itself beyond its own borders. The latest declarations to this effect date from May 21 The New York Times: “What we have always asked of President Biden – and not just President Biden, but of the leaders of many countries – is that we want to use weapons for defense,” the Ukrainian leader said. “How do we respond when they hit our cities? They are stationed in the villages closest to the Ukrainian border in Russia. They strike from there, knowing that we will not retaliate, knowing that they are using civilian populations as cover. But they proceed calmly, knowing that our partners do not give us permission.

Zelenskiy explained that the weapons that the Ukrainian armed forces want to use will be deployed against military targets: he cited NATO howitzers that would be used on the Kharkiv front, the only battlefield from which Russian territory would be within reach. range of Ukrainian artillery. -manufactured HIMARS short-range missiles and ATACMS long-range missiles, as well as Anglo-French Storm Shadow/Scalp long-range missiles. Zelenskiy also demanded, as he does repeatedly, the green light to use these missiles to attack airfields located hundreds of kilometers from the front lines from which Russian bombers operate.

The United States agreed in April, after two years of negotiations, to provide Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles, another red line to which Kiev's allies ultimately agreed. This was also the case of the opposition to the sending of heavy armored vehicles supplied by Germany and the United States, or of the refusal, during the first year and a half of the war, to deliver combat planes to the invaded country. . This summer, the first six F-16 fighters for the Ukrainian Air Force are expected to arrive from Denmark.

Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Belgium have agreed to donate more than 70 F-16s to Ukraine. Zelenskiy said that to counter Russian air dominance, kyiv would need at least 120 of these fighters. According to Ukrainian military intelligence, the Russian Air Force has around 300 combat aircraft operating in the theater of war.

One of the reasons Biden resisted delivering F-16s was the fear that they would be used to bomb targets within Russia's borders. For the same reason, Germany refuses to deliver its long-range Taurus missiles, despite assurances from the Ukrainian government that this will not be the case.

Ukraine regularly strikes military, industrial and energy targets in Russia, even as far as 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the border. He achieves this thanks to swarms of local drone bombs which strike the Russian oil industry. Washington has called on Zelenskiy to end the campaign because it could destabilize the global fuel market, but the warnings, expressed publicly even by Biden's Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have fallen on deaf ears.

Deputy Defense Secretary Celeste Wallander went so far as to criticize Ukraine's strategy during an appearance before the US Congress, deeming attacks on civilian infrastructure unworthy of a democracy. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 15 in kyiv – and repeated the same thing during an appearance before Congress last Wednesday – that Washington's position had not changed: it was not supportive to the extension of the war to Russia. “We have not encouraged or permitted strikes outside of Ukraine, but ultimately Ukraine must make its own decisions about how it is going to fight this war, a war that it is waging to defend its freedom, its sovereignty, its territorial integrity.” These comments, which are not new from the American administration, are now interpreted in the Ukrainian media as a sign that Washington could consider lifting its veto. The New York Times reported Thursday that Blinken favored it.

Ukraine's Baltic allies are the main supporters of a change in NATO's position. “From the beginning, we made the mistake of imposing limits on the Ukrainians, because we thought it would be seen as an escalation. [of the war]“, declared Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis on May 21 on LRT television. “The Ukrainians must be able to strike on Russian territory, on their logistical lines and on the troops preparing to attack. There is only one side that follows the rules. We imposed these rules on ourselves; we must abandon them.

Zelenskiy also suggested the possibility of neighboring NATO countries collaborating in the defense of Ukrainian cities by intercepting Russian missiles. The intervention of the United States, Jordan and the United Kingdom in the interception of missiles fired by Iran against Israel last April caused a stir in Ukrainian society. Why couldn't the Ukrainians benefit from the support of Romania and Poland? Oleksandr Lytvynenko, secretary of Ukraine's National Security Council, called the limitations imposed on kyiv by its allies “completely unfair” in an interview with The Financial Times Wednesday. “But it is what it is: a big step forward, but before that two steps back,” Zelenskiy said in an interview with Reuters this week. “Every decision that we and then all of us together make is about a year overdue.”

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