Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken on Friday left open the possibility that President Biden would allow Ukraine to use American-made weapons to attack a broader range of targets inside Russia, going beyond the attacks he has approved in launch sites that the Russians are using for their current assault on the Kharkiv area.
“Going forward, we will continue to do what we have been doing, which is: adapt and adjust as necessary,” Blinken said at a news conference in Prague at the end of a two-day meeting of top diplomats. of the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Blinken was responding to a journalist’s question about whether the United States could give Ukraine permission to use American-made weapons to further attack Russia. The phrase “adapt and adjust” is one Blinken used at a news conference Wednesday in Chisinau, Moldova, to suggest that Biden was about to make a major policy change and grant Ukraine permission to use weapons to attack. Russia, as Ukrainian and European leaders had been urging for weeks.
U.S. officials then said Thursday that Biden had made that decision in recent days and told the Ukrainians, but that permission to strike in Russia was limited to sites the Russians were using for the Kharkiv assault. . U.S. officials said a ban on Ukraine using weapons for “long-range” attacks on Russia had not changed.
But Blinken’s comments on Friday suggested the ban could change, depending on changes in battlefield conditions and the direction of the war. However, he did say that the United States was “proceeding deliberately and effectively.” That included ensuring Ukrainian soldiers had the training needed to use new weapons systems and the ability to maintain them, he said.
U.S. officials say the policy change means that Ukrainian strikes with U.S. weapons in Russia can be preemptive, but can only take place within Russian areas near Kharkiv that the Pentagon has designated and that U.S. military officials have communicated to their Ukrainian counterparts.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, speaking at a separate news conference in Prague on Friday, said he welcomed the easing of restrictions on Ukraine and that top diplomats from allied governments had made some progress in discussions on Ukraine. in the past. two days.
“They agreed that NATO should play a greater coordinating role in all military aid to Ukraine, he said, and that member countries should strive to provide at least 40 billion euros in total of such annual aid, about $43 billion,” for as long as necessary.” .” That would give Ukraine predictability when planning long-term defense, she added.
The diplomats also agreed to try to shorten Ukraine’s path to NATO membership, he said, without elaborating.
Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike narrowly defined targets in Russia came after weeks of talks with the Ukrainians and came at the urging of key European allies. In closely held meetings in Washington this month, his top advisers debated the benefits and potential consequences of giving Ukraine more leeway with U.S.-made weapons.
Blinken pushed for permission for the Ukrainians, and other senior officials agreed, notably Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, Lloyd J. Austin III, the secretary of defense, and Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. , President. of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They presented their recommendations to Biden, who understood the need, US officials said.
Three days after his May 14 visit to kyiv, Blinken met with Biden and Sullivan at the White House. He stressed the need to relax restrictions on Ukrainian use of American-made weapons to better defend the Kharkiv area.
The Russians have pushed a campaign in that area since early May, using launch sites within their borders for attacks in Ukraine. The Ukrainians have argued that they need to be able to use powerful weapons to counterattack artillery, missile launchers and air bases. Some Russian planes are dropping glide bombs from Russian airspace to hit targets around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.
On May 20, Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, told the New York Times in an interview in kyiv that Russia’s ability to carry out cross-border attacks gave it a “huge advantage” in the war. Ukraine has attacked inside Russia with drones and other weapons not made in the United States, but the Americans are by far the largest supplier of the most powerful weapons that Ukrainian commanders say could make a difference.
Biden had held back from relaxing restrictions largely because of fears among U.S. officials that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia could use a tactical nuclear warhead on Ukraine. That anxiety peaked in October 2022 over intelligence assessments of Russian military actions around the country’s nuclear arsenal, and then subsided. For months, European officials have said their intelligence assessments indicate Putin’s potential to use a nuclear weapon is not as great as Americans believe.
The leaders of China and India (both big buyers of Russian oil) have warned Putin not to cross the line on nuclear weapons, U.S. officials said, and that has been a factor in recent American calculations. While India has maintained a neutral position in the war, China is by far Russia’s most important partner and, according to US officials, has helped Russia rebuild its military-industrial base with exports of machinery, production tools and chips and other microelectronic products. (Blinken noted on Friday that the United States had imposed sanctions on more than 100 Chinese entities for helping Russia and said he hoped “to see actions taken by the Europeans.”)
There is also a sense among American officials that the Russians have thought for some time that the Americans are already giving the Ukrainians a lot of leeway in the use of weapons. Therefore, making that a reality would not be as provocative as US officials had previously believed.
The NATO meeting in Prague was a planning session for a leaders’ summit to be held in Washington in July, in honor of the 75th anniversary of the alliance’s founding. The officials said they would make more substantial announcements than on the defense of Ukraine.
Blinken said Biden and other leaders at the summit would reveal details of a “robust support package” for Ukraine.
“Our purpose now is to build a bridge to bring Ukraine closer to NATO and, ultimately, to it,” he said. “As I said, it’s a bridge that I think you’ll see emerge at the summit.”