U.S. Allows Ukraine to Carry Out Limited Strikes Inside Russia With American Weapons
But Washington still rules out use of long-range ATACMS missiles beyond Ukraine’s borders
By Gordon Lubold and Michael R. Gordon
Updated May 31, 2024 The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON—In a significant policy reversal, the Biden administration on Thursday said for the first time that it would allow Ukrainian forces to do limited targeting with American-supplied weapons inside Russia.
The new policy will allow Ukrainian forces to use artillery and fire short-range rockets from Himars launchers against command posts, arms depots and other assets on Russian territory that are being used by Russian forces to carry out its attack on Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine. But the policy doesn’t give Ukraine permission to use longer-range ATACMS surface-to-surface missiles inside Russia.
The narrow geographic scope represents an effort by the Biden administration to help Ukraine better defend against Russia’s continuing offensive while limiting the risk that the conflict in Ukraine could escalate into a direct clash between Washington and Moscow.
“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S.-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them,” a U.S. official said. “Our policy with respect to prohibiting the use of ATACMS or long-range strikes inside of Russia has not changed.”
The policy shift was earlier reported Thursday by Politico.
The weapons the U.S. will allow the Ukrainians to use in the Kharkiv region include the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, or GMLRS, and High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or Himars, and artillery systems, U.S. officials said.
The U.S. had since the conflict began in February 2022 declined to allow any U.S.-supplied weapons to be used to target forces inside Russia. Ukraine has been allowed to strike targets in Crimea because it is within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders and Washington says that Moscow’s annexation of the peninsula is illegal.Secretary of State Antony Blinken, traveling in Eastern Europe, signaled Wednesday that the administration was open to adjusting its policy proscribing the use of American weapons to strike Russia, but the new policy switch didn’t come until Thursday.
The Ukrainians made the request to use American-supplied weapons on targets inside Russia on May 13 as Moscow pressed its offensive in northeast Ukraine. Because of Kharkiv’s proximity to Russian territory, the Russian military has been able to fire across the border knowing that it couldn’t be struck by Western-supplied arms.
Following that appeal, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, agreed that the U.S. policy be adjusted and a formal recommendation was made to President Biden on May 15.
Biden also conferred that day with Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s supreme allied commander, Austin and Sullivan and instructed them to work out the details. On May 17, Blinken backed the new approach in a meeting with Biden and Sullivan following his trip to Kyiv.
The U.S. policy change, which will enable Ukraine to strike Russian targets just over the Russia-Ukraine border, came after British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and French President Emmanuel Macron said they would remove the prohibition on the use of arms supplied by their nations against targets in Russia. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also said earlier this week that Western nations needed to consider lifting such restrictions.
In providing Ukraine with new flexibility, some Western officials have sought to define the circumstances in which Ukraine could be permitted to use the weapons. Macron, for example, has said that French-supplied weapons might be used to strike missile sites in Russia that were being used to attack Ukraine.
Russia has repeatedly warned the U.S. and other Western nations against providing longer-range missiles like the ATACMS to Ukraine and has hinted at retaliation.
“Constant escalation can lead to serious consequences,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday.
But American officials say that it is Russia that has escalated the fighting by turning to North Korea for ballistic missiles and to Iran for one-way attack drones.
Russia’s recent encroachment on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was raising alarm in Kyiv as well as Western capitals after Moscow’s armed forces used Russian territory as a staging ground for its assaults.
“Ukraine has the right for self-defense and that includes also the right to strike legitimate military targets inside Russia,” said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg at an informal meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Prague on Friday.
“This is even more urgent as we see that Russia has opened a new front,” said Stoltenberg, who had called for a change in policy before the announcement by the U.S. “They’re hitting Ukraine with missiles, with artillery based inside Russia. And of course, Ukraine must be able to hit back and to defend themselves.”
Write to Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com and Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com