At the initiative of the State Department, the US presidential administration is actively debating whether to ease the ban on Ukraine's ability to strike targets in Russia with American weapons. We are talking about the targets that allowed Moscow to occupy part of Ukrainian territory recently. This was reported by The New York Times, according to UNN.
Details
According to the NYT, a proposal to ease the ban on Ukraine, put forward by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken after a visit to Kyiv last week, is still in its infancy, and it is unclear how many of his colleagues in President Joe Biden's inner circle have signed on. According to officials, the proposal has not yet been formally presented to the US president, who traditionally exercises "the utmost caution.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller declined to comment on internal policy discussions on Ukraine, including Blinken's report after he returned from Kyiv. But officials involved in the discussions said that Blinken's position had changed because the Russians had opened a new front in the war.
Україна має приймати власні рішення щодо захисту – Ентоні Блінкен23.05.24, 07:24
For several months now, Ukraine has been attacking Russian ships, oil facilities, and power plants, but it has done so mostly with Ukrainian-made drones that lack the power and speed of American weapons. And increasingly, the Russians are shooting down Ukrainian air targets.
The NYT notes that the United States is now under increasing pressure to help Ukraine strike Russian military targets, even as Washington wants to maintain its ban on attacking oil refineries and other Russian infrastructure with American-supplied weapons. The UK, which usually keeps pace with Washington on military strategy, has lifted its own restrictions so that its Storm Shadow cruise missile system can be used to strike Russia on a wider scale.
The newspaper also writes that the United States is currently considering training Ukrainian troops domestically rather than sending them to a training ground in Germany. This would require the deployment of US military personnel on the territory of Ukraine, which US President Joe Biden has so far banned.
House Speaker Mike Johnson believes that the US should allow Ukraine to fight the war as it sees fit and that Ukraine should be able to fight back.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy criticized Western allies for taking too long to decide on military assistance to Ukraine, offering to provide air supportby shooting down Russian missiles over Ukrainian territory.