US declares Russia a free-fire zone for Ukraine; Putin threatens to arm Pyongyang

(Originally published June 21 in “What in the World“) The White House has again eased restrictions on how and where Ukraine can use American weapons against Russian invaders.

Washington has agreed to let Ukraine’s forces target attacking Russian forces anywhere inside Russia. According to U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, permission now “extends to anywhere that Russian forces are coming across the border from the Russian side to the Ukrainian side to try to take additional Ukrainian territory.”

It was only late last month that Biden lifted his restraint on letting Ukraine use U.S. arms to attack forces across the border. But Biden limited those attacks to forces involved in the latest offensive against Ukraine’s Kharkiv province. Ukraine immediately launched attacks with its U.S.-supplied Himars against Russian forces in Russia’s bordering Belgorod province, with some hitting targets in the city of Belgorod.

The new U.S. latitude puts it on par with permissions already granted by a dozen U.S. allies, including Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Poland. Ukraine had also been using its own drones since December 2022 to launch attacks in Russia, with some coming close to Moscow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, left Vietnam Thursday for Moscow, but not without first dropping his own bombshell. Putin reportedly told reporters that he may retaliate for the West’s move to let Ukraine use their weapons to hit targets inside Russia by supplying long-range weapons to North Korea.

Putin’s threat echoes a more veiled one he made while in Pyongyang earlier this week, where he signed a mutual defense treaty with North Korea’s supreme leader Kim Jong Un. Putin earlier this month warned that Russia might supply long-range weapons to other countries so they can target members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Putin’s treaty, and his threat, also appear to be part of a tit-for-tat response to Biden’s signing last week of a 10-year security agreement with Ukraine. Biden emphasized that that agreement was meant to prove to Putin that he couldn’t hope to outlast Western support of Ukraine’s efforts to reverse the Russian invasion of Feb. 2022.

According to the text of the Russia-North Korea treaty, “in case any one of the two sides is put in a state of war by an armed invasion from an individual state or several states, the other side shall provide military and other assistance with all means in its possession without delay.” It remains to be seen whether Ukraine’s use of Western weapons inside Russia will be construed as an “armed invasion.” But North Korea has already been supplying Russia with artillery and missiles anyway.

Washington, meanwhile, said it was diverting some shipments of air-defense missiles for Patriot launchers to Ukraine from other countries.