President Biden appears on the verge of clearing the way for Ukraine to launch long-range Western weapons deep inside Russian territory, as long as it doesn’t use arms provided by the United States, European officials say.
The issue, which has long been debated in the White House, is coming to a head on Friday with the first visit to Washington by Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer.
Britain has already signaled to the United States that it is eager to let Ukraine use its “Storm Shadow” long-range missiles to strike at Russian military targets far from the Ukrainian border. But it wants explicit permission from Mr. Biden in order to demonstrate a coordinated strategy with the United States and France, which makes a similar missile. American officials say Mr. Biden has not made a decision, but will hear from Mr. Starmer on Friday.
If the president approves, the move could help Ukraine hold the line after it seizes Russian territory, as it did during its surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. But Mr. Biden has hesitated to allow Ukraine to use American weapons in the same way, particularly after warnings from American intelligence agencies that Russia could respond by aiding Iran in targeting American forces in the Middle East.
On Thursday, White House officials insisted there was no imminent decision on the use of the American-made surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile Systems — known as ATACMS. But Mr. Biden himself has signaled that a loosening of restrictions is coming. He was asked on Tuesday whether he was ready to grant the increasingly insistent requests from President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.
“We are working that out right now,” he said.
If Mr. Biden permits the British and French to go ahead, and if he follows in coming weeks by allowing the use of the ATACMS, it could well be his final acceleration of the military aid to Ukraine.
Quietly, Republican leaders in the Senate, especially Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, have been urging an aggressive response — a sharp split with former President Donald J. Trump, who refused in Tuesday night’s presidential debate to declare that he wants Ukraine to win, or to say that Russia should get out of the 20 percent or so of Ukraine it has taken since war began.
On Thursday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia issued an unusually specific warning to the West, saying that the Ukrainians alone cannot operate the long-range missiles, because they require Western technical help and satellite guidance.
“This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia,” Mr. Putin said. “And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”
For the United States, assessing how much to believe Mr. Putin has been a difficult task. Over more than 30 months of war, the pattern has been clear: At every stage, Mr. Biden has been concerned that providing new weapons to Ukraine, or allowing Ukraine’s military to shoot into Russian territory, would cross one of Mr. Putin’s red lines.
In the opening months of the war, Mr. Biden was reluctant to provide HIMARS artillery to Ukraine, then M1 Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets and short- and then longer-range ATACMS. But in each case, as the administration discovered Mr. Putin appeared less eager to escalate the war than initially believed, it loosened the reins.
In the spring, for the first time, Mr. Biden approved allowing Ukraine to fire at Russian artillery and other targets just over the Russian border, to avoid giving Mr. Putin’s forces a haven for attacking cities and towns around Kharkiv. That permission was later expanded. But striking the border areas is essentially a defensive operation. Senior White House officials say there remains worry about using American ATACMS to strike more than 60 or so miles into Russia.
In classified briefings, American intelligence officials have expressed deeper concerns about direct, visible American participation in Ukraine’s move to seize and hold positions near Kursk. There are indications, they have warned, that Russia could provide technological help that would allow Iran and its proxy forces to attack American forces in the Middle East. The administration this week accused Iran of shipping missiles for the first time to Russia for use in the war, an accusation the government in Tehran has denied.
In a series of meetings with senior administration officials in recent weeks, Ukrainian officials have been arguing that their seizure of actual territory inside Russia demonstrates that U.S. fears of crossing Russian red lines were overblown. The United States, those Ukrainian officials argue, should allow Kyiv to use American weapons to strike deeper into Russia.
Emerging from one of those meetings in Kyiv on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters that he and Mr. Zelensky, joined by the British foreign minister, David Lammy, “discussed long-range fires, but a number of other things as well.”
“We’re going to take what we learned back to President Biden in my case, and the prime minister in David’s case. The two of them will meet in just a few days’ time in Washington to discuss how our countries will continue to support Ukraine.”
To a growing number of military analysts and former U.S. officials, the administration’s reticence makes no sense, especially since, they say, Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk has yet to elicit an escalatory response from Moscow.
“Easing the restrictions on Western weapons will not cause Moscow to escalate,” 17 former ambassadors and generals wrote in a letter to the administration this week. “We know this because Ukraine is already striking territory Russia considers its own — including Crimea and Kursk — with these weapons and Moscow’s response remains unchanged.”
Senior Ukrainian officials were at the Pentagon two weeks ago making a similar argument to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III. Ukraine’s new defense minister, Rustem Umerov, argued that the Kursk incursion showed that Russia’s red lines were simply bluffs that had slowed the Western effort help Ukraine.
With the Kursk incursion, Mr. Umerov argued, Ukraine has demonstrated it can invade, and even occupy, Russian territory without igniting World War III, according to two officials.
But American officials say it is too early to reach that conclusion, because there are many ways for Mr. Putin to retaliate. During the meeting, Mr. Austin asked Mr. Umerov several questions about which sites inside Russia Ukraine would target, probing to make sure Ukraine would focus on military sites like airfields, but not power plants or other civilian infrastructure. Mr. Austin also queried his Ukrainian counterpart about what objective such targeting could accomplish.
Mr. Austin continues to believe that the use of U.S. weapons for long-range strikes into Russia won’t turn the tide of the war, in part because there are not enough ATACMS — or British and French missiles — to sustain an attack.
At Ramstein, a U.S. air base in Germany, last Friday, Mr. Austin added that loosening the reins on Ukraine’s use of ATACMS would not resolve one of the biggest problems facing Ukrainian cities and troops — so-called glide bombs launched from Russian attack planes deep inside Russia.
“As we look at the battlefield currently, we know that the Russians have actually moved their aircraft that are using the glide bombers beyond the range of ATACMS,” Mr. Austin said.
The United States has already supplied Ukraine with scores of the long range ATACMS, but its stockpiles are running low. American officials are concerned they could not supply enough of those munitions to seriously damage a wide range of Russian targets.
Mr. Umerov’s counter — made during the Pentagon meeting, officials said — was that even if the ATACMS are not a game changer, they can still be used to good effect to hit Russian sites inside Russia and to disrupt Russian logistics.
“The strikes would help degrade Russian military capabilities, and Russia already uses Iranian, Chinese and North Korean weapons and components against targets in Ukraine,” said Seth G. Jones, a senior vice president with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday that the new shipment of short-range ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia set a dangerous precedent that is likely to lead to more shipments.
“One has to assume that if Iran is providing Russia with these types of missiles that it’s very likely it would not be a one-time good deal,” he said. “That this would be a source of capability that Russia would seek to tap in the future.”
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