US President Joe Biden has authorised Ukraine to launch limited strikes into Russia using US-made long-range missiles, in an enormous policy shift before the tip of his White House term in January, two people acquainted with the choice said.
The move by Biden is available in response to the deployment of 1000’s of North Korean troops to support Russia in its war against Ukraine, and after a barrage of recent strikes by Moscow on Ukrainian cities on the weekend.
Tuesday will mark the 1,000th day of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Biden has allowed Ukraine to make use of HIMARS — the American High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — to strike targets inside Russia.
But he has long resisted allowing Kyiv to launch strikes inside Russia using US-made long-range missiles often known as the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, on the grounds that it could escalate tensions with Moscow. ATACMS missiles have a variety of as much as 300 kilometres, or 190 miles.
He’s now dropping those objections greater than two months before he leaves office to make way for Donald Trump. The Republican is sceptical of additional military aid to Ukraine and has vowed to bring a swift end to the war — without saying how exactly he would do it.
The White House declined to comment. The Pentagon declined to reply to a request for comment.
In a late-night address in Kyiv on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted media reports “talking in regards to the proven fact that we’ve got received permission” to make use of the ATACMS inside Russia, though he didn’t confirm Biden’s decision.
Zelenskyy has pleaded for months for the US and other western partners to lift restrictions placed on long-range weapons provided by them to be used inside Russia.
He has argued that cross-border strikes with the American ATACMS, British Storm Shadow and French Scalp missiles were needed to hit Moscow’s forces before they might launch latest attacks on Ukrainian targets, including critical infrastructure.
“Two countries are against us, against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said on Friday, referring to Russia and North Korea. “We might very very like to be granted the power to make use of long-range weapons against military targets on Russia’s territory.”
Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister, said the usage of ATACMS missiles would allow Kyiv to set its sights on “high value targets” and “potentially disrupt Russian operations”.
“There are targets which may only be addressed by high payload missiles comparable to ATACMS or equivalent aerial missiles. That is, after all, a call giving Ukraine troops a probability, though as with many previous decisions coming after a big and intensely painful delay.”
Biden’s decision to permit the Ukrainians to make use of ATACMS missiles followed the deployment early last month of some 12,000 North Korean troops to Russia.
This was the primary foray into the war by a foreign military and a significant expansion of North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Pyongyang had previously provided Moscow with lots of of ballistic missiles and tens of millions of artillery shells. In exchange, Moscow has provided Pyongyang with military technologies to assist with its missile programmes and money, a senior Ukrainian official said.
In recent weeks, Moscow has massed some 50,000 troops, including 10,000 North Korean soldiers, ahead of an anticipated offensive in Russia’s Kursk region to retake about 600 sq km of territory held by Ukrainian forces since their incursion in August.
The American ATACMS missiles are more likely to be first utilized by Ukraine to focus on those Russian and North Korean forces within the Kursk region.
A Ukrainian intelligence assessment shared with the Financial Times revealed that North Korea has supplied Russia with long-range rocket and artillery weapons, including 50 domestically made 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems.
A few of these weapons have been moved to the Kursk region for the planned assault involving North Korean troops.
“Even when limited to the Kursk region, ATACMS missiles put in danger high value Russian systems, assembly areas, logistics, command and control,” said Michael Kofman, senior fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“They could enable Ukraine to carry on to Kursk for longer and lift the prices to North Korea for its involvement within the war.”
Bill Taylor, former US ambassador to Ukraine, said Biden’s decision makes “Ukraine stronger and increases the chances of a just end to the war”.
“The choice might also unlock British and French missiles. Possibly even German,” he added.
When asked in regards to the escalatory risk from the US shift in policy, António Guterres, UN secretary-general, told reporters on the G20 in Rio de Janeiro: “We now have a really consistent position regarding escalation within the Ukrainian war. We would like peace . . . in keeping with the UN charter and international law.”
Russia has not yet responded to the move. In September, Vladimir Putin said any such US authorisation would mean “the direct involvement of Nato countries, the US, and the EU . . . It could mean they’re at war with Russia — and if that’s the case, we’ll make the corresponding decisions.”
Russian military bloggers near the Kremlin responded on Telegram with fury and frustration to the news.
Rybar, a channel with greater than 1.3mn subscribers, said the specter of ATACMS missiles would force Russian command and control centres, air defences and airfields farther from the front lines.
Additional reporting by Henry Foy and Anastasia Stognei
