US President Joe Biden has approved Ukraine’s use of American-made weapons to strike within Russia as long as the targets relate to Moscow’s offensive in the Kharkiv region, a US official said on Thursday.
The decision marks an important shift from Washington’s previous position that Ukraine should not use US weapons to strike targets in Russia — and follows growing pressure on Biden from Kyiv and its allies.
“Over the past few weeks Ukraine came to us and asked for permission . . . that went right to the president. And as you heard, he has approved the use of our weapons for that purpose,” secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Friday in Prague. He added that the US would continue to adapt its policies regarding the use of its weapons by Ukraine.
Ukraine requested permission during a video call with top US officials on May 13 to use US weapons systems against targets in Russia that were being used for its assault on Kharkiv, according to a US official. The request was approved in recent days by Biden.
Germany announced on Friday that it was following the US in allowing Ukraine to use German-supplied weapons to attack military targets in Russia.
Steffen Hebestreit, spokesman for German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said that in recent weeks, Russia had been launching “co-ordinated attacks” on the area around Kharkiv “from positions in the immediately adjacent Russian border region”.
Western leaders were convinced that Ukraine had the right under international law to defend itself against these attacks, Hebestreit said, “including [with] weapons that we have supplied”.
Several Nato foreign ministers meeting in Prague on Friday welcomed the shift in US policy. “If you have the right of self-defence, there are no geographical boundaries,” said Dutch foreign minister Hanke Bruins Slot.
“Ukraine must be able to defend their territory, also, of course by hitting the artillery, the missiles which are launched against them from inside Russia,” said Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, adding that he expected Ukraine to use its new abilities in “a responsible way”.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said that he had received the US message early on Friday but refused to go into details.
“I want to see in practice what it will be. It is some step forward” towards the goal of being able to defend Ukraine and its population properly, Zelenskyy said after a meeting with Nordic leaders in Stockholm.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s Eurasia Program said the “most important and immediate effect is that Ukraine will be able to strike targets at greater depths with Himars GMLRS munitions, including Russian artillery, electronic warfare, air defences and command posts”. He said until now, Ukraine had been “forced to move artillery too close to the front to engage targets at greater depth, which put them at greater risk”.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s security council, said the decision was a “serious escalation of the conflict” and claimed that Russia would destroy any western weaponry used to attack it “both in Ukraine, and in the territory of other countries”.
Medvedev said the US move could lead to Russian retaliation strikes that would provoke a direct conflict between Moscow and Nato in which President Vladimir Putin could use tactical nuclear weapons.
“This isn’t intimidation or nuclear bluffing. The current military conflict with the west is developing according to the worst possible scenario,” Medvedev wrote on social media site Telegram.
Biden’s move on Thursday falls short of a sweeping greenlight for Ukraine to use US weapons to strike everywhere inside Russia. “The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them,” a US official said on Thursday.
“Our policy with respect to prohibiting the use of Atacms or long-range strikes inside of Russia has not changed,” the official added, referring to a US ballistic missile system.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Biden has opposed the use of US weapons to strike inside Russian territory for fear of escalating the conflict and drawing the US and Nato directly into war with Moscow.
But in recent weeks he has been weighing a partial change to that policy in light of the Russian offensive in Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s north-east.
Moscow opened a new front in the region earlier this month, sending more than 30,000 ground forces into Ukraine from Russia’s Belgorod region, according to Oleksandr Lytvynenko, Ukrainian national security and defence council secretary.
Russia has used warplanes and ground launchers to fire powerful glide bombs, missiles and heavy artillery at Kharkiv city and surrounding areas, killing dozens of civilians as it pounds targets just across the border.
But both US and Ukrainian officials believe Russia’s military advance in the Kharkiv region has stalled and it will not be able to capture the city itself.
Biden’s move comes as he prepares to travel to Europe next week for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, and a state visit to Paris hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, who has backed Ukraine’s ability to strike targets inside Russia with western weapons.
Biden and Zelenskyy are expected to sign a bilateral security deal at a G7 summit in Italy later in June, cementing long-term defence ties between the US and Ukraine.
Additional reporting by Max Seddon in Riga, Guy Chazan in Berlin and Richard Milne in Oslo
