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U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has for the first time authorized Ukraine to use U.S.-made long-range weapons against Russia, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing anonymous U.S. officials.
The major policy change follows months of appeals from Kyiv and has the potential to profoundly change the shape of the war. Moscow has repeatedly warned the West against allowing Ukraine to strike at targets deep inside Russia, with President Vladimir Putin warning this would put NATO “at war” with Moscow.
According to The New York Times, Ukraine is likely to use the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, system to defend its troops against Russian and North Korean forces in Russia’s Kursk region, where Kyiv has held territory since launching a bold cross-border incursion in early August.
The newspaper’s sources said that the Biden administration’s move is a response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops to the Kursk region.
“One of the goals of the policy change, they said, is to send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them,” The New York Times wrote.
However, U.S. officials cited by NYT said they do not expect the policy change to fundamentally alter the course of the war.
U.S. officials had previously said they believed the ATACMS missiles would make a limited difference to Ukraine’s campaign and they also wanted to ensure that Washington’s own stocks of the munitions were not depleted.
The American shift is likely to have wider repercussions and lead European allies to review their stances.
France and Britain have provided Ukraine with their long-range missiles known, respectively, as Storm Shadow and SCALP, but have held back from authorizing their use inside Russia without American approval for ATACMS.
During a meeting with French leader Emmanuel Macron on Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain discussed how to put Ukraine in “the strongest possible position going into the winter,” his office said afterward.
Speaking in Argentina on Sunday, Macron said Putin “does not want peace” and that “it’s clear that President Putin intends to intensify the fighting.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has refused to supply Ukraine with his country’s Taurus missiles with a range of over 500 kilometers (310 miles) over fears that they could hit Russian territory.
In the final two months of the Biden administration, U.S. officials have promised to spend the remaining $6 billion of approved Ukraine funding before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
During campaigning, Trump and his allies consistently criticized Western assistance for Kyiv.
Trump’s pick for National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz, said recently that “pouring more billions in [to the war in Ukraine] is the definition of insanity at this point.”
Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has even mocked Zelensky online, sharing a clip on Instagram last weekend that said he was just weeks away “from losing your allowance.”
Russia pounded Ukraine on Sunday with a massive attack that killed 11 civilians across several regions and damaged the country’s already fragile energy grid.
Nationwide emergency power restrictions would be implemented Monday ahead of a much-feared winter, the state grid operator announced.
AFP contributed reporting.
