The Government of US President Joe Biden has authorized Ukraine to use US weapons to attack the interior of Russia, according to the Reuters agency and newspapers. The New York Timesand Washington Post. The step represents a shift of enormous proportions in Washington’s policy in that war, where until now the White House opposed kyiv’s attacks entering Russian territory out of concern that Moscow could respond forcefully.
According to Reuters, citing “sources familiar with the matter,” Ukraine plans to carry out its first long-distance attack inside Russia in the coming days. To do so, it would use the ATACMS missile systems that the United States began providing it this year. ATACMS have a range of about 300 kilometers. The Times specifies that the Ukrainian projectiles would be launched against Russian and North Korean targets to protect Ukrainian troops located in the western Russian region of Kursk.
The change in the US position comes in response to the Russian decision to deploy nearly 10,000 North Korean soldiers for combat intervention, according to the Times. Washington has time and again expressed its concern about the participation of these troops, which it believes could have serious consequences in eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The White House had warned that, if engaged in combat, North Korean soldiers would represent a legitimate target for Ukrainian attacks.
The idea of the attacks, according to the newspaper, is not so much to alter the course of the war but to make it clear to those soldiers that they can be hit and to dissuade the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, from sending additional troops to participate in that conflict in the that Pyongyang already supports Moscow with the production and shipment of ammunition, among other war materials. The presence of North Korean soldiers had been one of the issues that Biden had put on the table in his meeting this Saturday in Lima with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Biden called for pressure from Beijing, North Korea’s great traditional ally, to prevent this deployment from expanding.
Washington’s decision comes two months before Donald Trump’s inauguration as the new president, on January 20. The Republican leader expresses himself in complimentary terms towards the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and assures that during his term he will end the war in a matter of one day. Trump has not specified what exact solution he has in mind, although his future vice president, JD Vance, has suggested that Ukraine would have to resign itself to giving up the occupied territory.
The first US authorization for the use of its weapons on Russian territory had arrived in May, in a much more limited way. Russia had attacked Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. To defend it, Washington approved the use of HIMARS air defense missiles, with a range of about 80 kilometers, in the Russian border area. But fear of Russian reaction blocked more ambitious measures.
