Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Friday left open the possibility that President Biden would authorize Ukraine to use American-made weapons to strike a broader range of targets in Russia, going beyond attacks that he approved at the launch sites the Russians are using for their current assault on the Kharkiv region.
“Going forward, we will continue to do what we have been doing, which is: if necessary, adapt and adjust,” Mr. Blinken said at a press conference in Prague at the the outcome of a two-day meeting of senior diplomats. member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Mr. Blinken was responding to a reporter’s question about whether the United States might allow Ukraine to use American-made weapons to strike deeper into Russia. The phrase “adapt and adjust” is what Mr. Blinken used at a news conference Wednesday in Chisinau, Moldova, to suggest that Mr. Biden was on the verge of policy change major and grant Ukraine permission to use weapons to strike in Moldova. Russia, as Ukrainian and European leaders have been demanding for weeks.
US officials then said on Thursday that Mr Biden had made this decision in recent days and told the Ukrainians, but that authorization to strike in Russia was limited to the sites the Russians were using for the assault on Kharkiv. U.S. officials said the ban on Ukraine using weapons for “long-range” attacks in Russia had not changed.
But Mr. Blinken’s remarks on Friday suggest the ban could change depending on changing battlefield conditions and the direction of the war. He said, however, that the United States was “proceeding in a deliberate and effective manner.” This includes ensuring that Ukrainian soldiers have the training to use the new weapons systems and the ability to maintain them, he explained.
U.S. officials say this policy change means Ukrainian attacks with U.S. weapons in Russia can be preemptive, but can only take place in Russian areas near Kharkiv that the Pentagon has designated and U.S. military officials have communicated to their Ukrainian counterparts.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at another news conference in Prague on Friday, said he welcomed the easing of restrictions on Ukraine and that senior diplomats from the Allied governments had made progress in talks on Ukraine in the past. two days.
They agreed that NATO should play a greater coordinating role in all military aid to Ukraine, he said, and that member countries should aim to provide at least $40 billion. euros in total of this annual aid, or around 43 billion dollars, “as long as necessary”. .” This would give Ukraine some predictability in planning for long-term defense, he added.
Diplomats also agreed to try to shorten Ukraine’s path to NATO membership, he said, without elaborating.
Mr Biden’s decision to authorize Ukraine to strike narrowly defined targets in Russia followed weeks of talks with the Ukrainians and came at the request of key European allies. In close meetings in Washington this month, his top aides debated the benefits and potential consequences of giving Ukraine more leeway over U.S.-made weapons.
Mr. Blinken insisted on the case for giving permission to the Ukrainians, and other top officials agreed – including Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, Lloyd J. Austin III, the secretary of defense, and Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. . They presented their recommendations to Mr. Biden, who saw the need for them, U.S. officials said.
Three days after his May 14 visit In kyiv, Mr. Blinken met with Mr. Biden and Mr. Sullivan at the White House. He stressed the need to ease restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American-made weapons in order to better defend the Kharkiv region.
The Russians have been waging a campaign in this area since early May, using launch sites within their borders for strikes in Ukraine. The Ukrainians say they must be able to use powerful weapons to respond to artillery, missile launchers and air bases. Some Russian planes let go hover bombs from Russian airspace to hit targets around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
On May 20, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, told the New York Times in an interview in kyiv, Russia’s ability to carry out cross-border attacks gave it a “huge advantage” in the war. Ukraine has hit Russia’s interior with drones and other weapons not made in the United States, but the Americans are by far the largest supplier of more powerful weapons that Ukrainian commanders say could do the difference.
Mr. Biden had held back from easing restrictions largely because of concerns among U.S. officials that Russian President Vladimir V. Putin could use a tactical nuclear warhead in Ukraine. This anxiety peaked in October 2022 due to intelligence assessments of Russian military actions around the country’s nuclear arsenal, and then declined. For months, European officials have said their intelligence assessments indicate that Mr. Putin’s potential to use a nuclear weapon is not as great as Americans think.
The leaders of China and India – both big buyers of Russian oil – warned Mr. Putin against crossing the limit on nuclear weapons, American officials said, and it was taken taken into account in the recent calculations of the Americans. While India has maintained a neutral stance in the war, China is by far Russia’s most important partner and, according to U.S. officials, has helped Russia rebuild its military-industrial base by exporting machinery , production tools, chips and other microelectronic products. (Mr. Blinken noted Friday that the United States had imposed sanctions on more than 100 Chinese entities for helping Russia, and said he expected “to see action from the Europeans.”)
U.S. officials also sense that the Russians have believed for some time that the Americans already give the Ukrainians wide latitude in the use of their weapons. Making this a reality would therefore not be as provocative as U.S. officials previously thought.
The NATO meeting in Prague was a planning session ahead of a leaders’ summit in July in Washington, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the alliance. The officials said they would make more substantive announcements than on Ukraine’s defense.
Mr. Blinken said Mr. Biden and other leaders at the summit would reveal details of a “robust support package” for Ukraine.
“Our goal now is to build the bridge that will bring Ukraine closer to NATO and then to membership,” he said. “As I said, this is a bridge that I think you will see emerge at the top.”
