As the US inches towards war with Russia, accountability is an early casualty

(Originally published June 3 in “What in the World“) Russian missiles struck Ukraine’s power network Saturday, with some aimed at targets so close to Poland that Warsaw scrambled jets in case some strayed across the border.

Missiles fired from inside Russia may be vulnerable to Ukrainian attack now that the U.S. and its allies are granting Kyiv permission to fire them across the border. Ukraine can now fire all but the longest-range missiles from its U.S.-supplied launchers against Russian forces across the border, and France has said Ukraine’s jets can fire French Scalp missiles into Russia. The Netherlands has also said the F-16s it has promised Ukraine are free to fly sorties into Russia.

The U.S. still hasn’t given the green light to Ukraine to fire long-range Atacms into Russia, however, and has also stipulated that any attacks across the border be limited to the area near Kharkiv. Ukrainian forces reportedly fired British Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia over the weekend even though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that, despite suggestions from British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, the U.K. hasn’t lifted formal restrictions against doing so.

As a reminder of how U.S. policy in Ukraine is being conducted, Politico published an account of how the decision to lift the restriction on attacking targets in Russia was made. It includes the revelation that Washington informed Ukraine of its new policy in a secret letter days before U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken publicly hinted that it was forthcoming.

A U.S.-U.K. air strike, meanwhile, destroyed eight Houthi drones in Yemen, with the Iran-backed Houthis saying the attacks killed 16 people.