Biden allows Ukraine to fire US weapons at Russians attacking across the border

(Originally published May 31 in “What in the World“) As widely telegraphed, U.S. President Joe Biden has eased his restriction against Ukraine using American weapons to strike targets across the border inside Russia.

The latest escalation still doesn’t give Kyiv carte blanche: the White House still prohibits Kyiv from using long-range U.S. missiles—Atacms—to strike targets deep inside Russia. But Ukraine can now use its U.S.-supplied weapons to hit Russian forces attacking or preparing to attack the city of Kharkiv as its latest northern offensive builds. That doesn’t stop Ukrainian forces from using their Atacms against Russian positions in occupied Ukraine, as they did this week to destroy a ferry terminal linking the Crimean city of Kerch with Russia’s Krasnodar.

U.S. President Joe Biden maintained this last reservation on Ukraine’s use of U.S. military aid for fear that having American weapons exploding inside Russian borders would put the U.S. and Russia on a path towards direct war—though it’s been clear since the start of the invasion that that’s where this has been heading.

Biden’s latest reversal follows the removal of a long string of previous restrictions aimed at easing Moscow—and the American public—into war with Russia: first Stingers, then howitzers, then Himars rocket launchers, then Patriot missiles, then Abrams battle tanks , then F-16s and then long-range Atacms, and most recently longer-range Atacms. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is reportedly fed up with Biden’s restraints, and is attacking Russian early-warning radar systems and oil refineries inside Russia in defiance of Washington’s concerns that they may provoke wider conflict. Zelensky cannot help but shake his head at the irony of how many Ukrainian lives might have been spared had these restraints not been imposed in the first place and Washington drawn a clearer line about the extent of its determination and commitment to reversing Russia’s invasion.

So, then, what’s next? Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Poland have all now approved Ukraine’s use of their weapons to attack Russia—and don’t appear to have saddled Kyiv with the same conditions on when or where. So, the fact that the missiles soon to be flying into Russia aren’t Made in America may not matter to Putin. Once they start causing civilian casualties, he’ll have all the public support he needs. Knowing Putin, he’ll likely declare that turnabout is fair play and that he now approves the firing of Russian weapons into NATO territory to stop any delivery or direction of lethal weapons into Ukraine.

Next up is most likely attack drones and then troops from the U.S. and its allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The only question is how long it will take before Russian President Vladimir Putin gives NATO the pretext to do so, and whether, realizing this, he instead decides his next move is to fast-forward to full-scale war against the West. And at the end of the day, that decision will be up to Zelensky.