The News
US President Joe Biden is expected to approve Ukraine’s use of long-range Western weapons to strike deep inside Russia as he meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Washington Friday, several outlets reported.
Britain wants to secure US permission for Kyiv to use its Storm Shadow long-range missiles, to strike targets far from the Ukrainian border. However, Biden is not expected to approve the use of US-provided arms, the New York Times reported, for fear of Russian retaliation.
Ukraine has issued increasingly insistent requests for the weapons to change the tide of the conflict, but Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that their use would mark a major escalation, putting NATO “at war” with Moscow.
SIGNALS
US strategy of escalation management ‘has not paid off’
Washington’s policy of “micromanaging” Ukraine’s strategy and tactics has worked to limit the war’s scale but failed to generate a Russian defeat, according to a former NATO official. While some European countries have been less concerned about supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles and fighter jets, the US has fought to limit or delay weapons support from itself and other European countries as a means of “escalation management,” the piece in Foreign Policy argued. Putin’s threats have proven themselves to be empty rhetoric time and again, and President Biden’s cautious approach only serves to prolong the war, the official argued, making it more deadly and costly for Ukrainian soldiers.
Storm Shadow missiles could aid Ukraine’s offensive tactics in Russia
The missiles in question were made under an Anglo-French collaboration that also involved manufacturing and parts from Italy and the US, requiring all four countries to sign off on their use, The Guardian reported. While the weapons — which reach targets up to 150 miles from their launch site and can damage airfields and penetrate bunkers — are already being used in battle within Ukraine’s borders, they have yet to be permitted for use in Russia. However, since the surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, the West’s attitude towards attacks on Russian soil has changed, the outlet said, and it is now better understood that, despite Putin’s threats, Ukraine is more effective when it is on the offensive.