The White House is finalizing a plan to ease some restrictions on how Ukraine can use U.S.-donated weapons and better protect itself from Russian missiles, according to a Western official and two other people familiar with the discussions.
The talks have been closely held among a small group of officials inside the White House, one of the people involved in the debate said. All were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the conversations.
The details of the plan are still coming together. But officials in Washington, London and Kyiv have in recent days discussed expanding the area inside Russia that Ukraine can hit with American and British-made weapons. They’ve also discussed how to prevent additional cross-border attacks by Russia, including the U.S. agreeing to allow Ukraine to use U.K. long-range missiles that contain American parts to strike inside Russia.
The current conversations between Washington and Kyiv mark a significant change in tenor from the ones the two countries held earlier this summer. And it signals the Biden administration may be ready to finally agree to Kyiv’s requests to enable Ukraine’s military to more forcefully defend itself and to make more aggressive moves inside Russia.
The National Security Council declined to comment.
In an interview with PBS Newshour in June, national security adviser Jake Sullivan indicated that the U.S. might be willing to expand the area it would allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons in Russia.
“It is not about geography. It is about common sense,” he said. “If Russia is attacking or about to attack from its territory into Ukraine it only makes sense to allow Ukraine to hit back.”
When asked if the administration would lift restrictions on long-range weapons, Biden told reporters Tuesday: “We’re working that out now.”
The conversations have grown in urgency in recent days after the U.S. confirmed that Iran had successfully shipped ballistic missiles to Russia.
For months, top U.S. officials have resisted calls by Kyiv and other European countries to lift all restrictions on the use of donated American weapons inside Russia. In May, the Biden administration decided to let Ukraine use certain weapons to hit inside Russia, but prevented Kyiv from using long-range missiles. Washington’s reasoning for keeping the remaining restrictions in place has oscillated between not wanting to escalate tensions with Moscow to arguing that Russia had moved too many of its high-value targets out of range for Ukraine to hit them even if permission were granted.
U.S. officials have also pointed out that since the Army no longer buys Army Tactical Missile Systems, the inventory is limited and is drawing close to where the U.S. would be concerned about its own stockpile. The maker of the missile, Lockheed Martin, is still producing several hundred a year but they are slated for sale to allies overseas. The replacement for the weapon, the Precision Strike Missile, is only beginning to be fielded and not in numbers to fully replace the missiles currently being expended.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British counterpart David Lammy were in Kyiv on Wednesday to huddle with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the weapons issue, along with Ukraine’s incursion into Russia and recent Russian advances in Ukraine.
British defense leaders have been in discussions with their U.S. counterparts for weeks about getting the U.S. to sign off on Ukraine using British Storm Shadow missiles to strike inside Russia. No decision has been reached, according to one person familiar with the talks, but the issue will be a part of the discussion between President Joe Biden and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer when the two meet at the White House on Friday.
A Pentagon spokesperson pointed to comments from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last week after a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany, where he said, “I don't believe one specific capability will be decisive, and I stand by that comment. I think Ukraine has a pretty significant capability of its own to address targets that are well beyond the range of ATACMS or even Storm Shadow for that matter.”
It’s unclear if the Biden administration has decided to lift its restrictions on long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, which the U.S. has transferred to Ukraine. It has previously told Ukraine it does not want its military using those weapons to strike deep inside Russia.
The discussions between Washington and Kyiv about loosening the Biden administration’s policy on Ukraine come after Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov visited Washington on Aug. 30. During that visit, he presented U.S. officials with a list of high-value targets his military could hit inside Russia if the U.S. were to ease restrictions, as POLITICO first reported.
Biden’s earlier decision to allow Ukraine the ability to conduct limited strikes inside Russia came with several caveats, including that Kyiv could only use the weapons in and around the Kharkiv region. The U.S. eventually expanded that geographic plane largely so that Ukraine could shoot down Russian glide bombs.
Russia has recently made significant advances near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk and launched massive artillery attacks on its power sector.
Lawmakers from both parties this week have intensified their pressure on the administration to make a decision. Since Tuesday, hawkish Republicans, a bipartisan group of more than two dozen Ukraine supporters and then Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Ben Cardin (D-Md.) have all urged the move.
Cardin, in an interview Wednesday, said he “would not be surprised” if the decision had already been made. The administration and Zelenskyy, he said, have been busy trying to overcome reluctance for the move from some allies, including Germany, by pointing to Ukraine’s suffering under Russian bombardments.
“The challenge is not within the administration, it’s how the administration feels, working with Europe, [about] how far it can go,” Cardin said.
Some individual countries can decide unilaterally to allow Ukraine to use their weapons inside Russia, but because the U.S. leads a coalition of donor nations, “we don’t like to do things where there are strong concerns,” he said.
“That is easing in the coalition. Even those that oppose using the weapons we provide inside Russia, we think their views are mellowing a little on allowing countries that want to do it, to do it,” Cardin said.
Cardin credited Zelenskyy’s persuasive efforts, which include the Ukrainian president’s as-yet unrevealed proposal to end the war. Cardin said he expects Zelenskyy to have “really meaningful conversations” with world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month about a peace plan that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty.
“Therefore, the weapons help Ukraine reach that day,” Cardin said.
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