The Biden administration will allow Kyiv “limited” use of the ATACMS long-range missile system to strike enemy positions in Kursk, a significant reversal of U.S. policy.
In this image provided by the U.S. Army, soldiers, from the 3rd Battalion, 321st Field Artillery Regiment of the 18th Field Artillery Brigade out of Fort Bragg N.C., conduct live fire testing at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., on Dec. 14, 2021, of early versions of the Army Tactical Missile System.
The move precedes by two months the return to the White House of President-elect Donald Trump, who has signaled he intends to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, though without offering details of how he will do so. The arrival of the North Koreans in the Kursk region in October, where Ukraine launched a surprise offensive in August, was seen as a major escalation by the West and spurred an intense effort inside the Biden administration and with allies on how to respond.
“If news of the policy shift is true,” said Michael Kofman, a Russian and Ukrainian military expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “then it could be of operational benefit to Ukraine, enabling them to better defend and hold on to the territory they currently occupy in Kursk and help offset the benefit that Russia enjoys from employing North Korean forces in this specific part of the front.
The authorization follows months of resistance by the Biden administration about allowing Ukraine to use the ATACMS to hit targets within Russia. Senior U.S. officials have repeatedly expressed private concern that Russia could retaliate by escalating inside Ukraine and around the world. In denying Kyiv’s pleas to be able to fire ATACMS inside Russia, administration officials have publicly said that the use of the weapon would have marginal utility on the battlefield.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials believe that the presence of North Korean troops will free Russian forces to focus on gaining ground elsewhere as well as push the front lines forward in Kursk, where Ukraine captured territory in August, providing a morale boost to Ukrainians, who have been sapped by nearly three years of war. Pyongyang’s involvement has rattled Washington and its allies, who are wary of the assistance Putin might offer Kim in return.
Later that month, he revised Russia’s nuclear doctrine in what was interpreted as a veiled threat against the use of U.S.-provided long-range weapons on Russian soil. Trump is expected to be far more skeptical of U.S. aid for Ukraine than Biden has been, and he has expressed eagerness to broker a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Putin and Trump spoke in a call after the election, according to five people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic exchange.
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