Biden administration has restricted Kyiv from using U.S.-made weapons in Russian territory

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Ukraine has asked the Biden administration to help identify targets in Russia for Kyiv to strike using its own weapons. It has also asked the U.S. to lift restrictions on the use of American provided weapons against military objectives inside Russia, U.S. and defense officials said. 

The request comes as Russia had made its biggest territorial gains in Ukraine in nearly 18 months in the northeast region of Kharkiv. Other U.S. officials said that Ukraine’s request, which was made over the past week, was being reviewed. 

If the U.S. were to agree to such changes, it could mark a major policy shift by the administration, which has long sought to reduce the risk of military escalation between Washington and Moscow while backing Ukraine. 

“They did ask [the United States] for help to strike into Russia,’’ Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr.told reporters traveling with him to Europe. “It wasn’t specific to a weapons system but additional help in striking the Russians.”

Russia’s assault across the border earlier this month has forced Ukraine to divert troops and resources from other parts of the country, putting strains on an already outmanned force that has been long waiting for additional U.S.-provided weapons. 

A White House spokesman said that current U.S. policy doesn’t support providing such targeting assistance or using American-weapons inside Russia. “We don’t encourage or enable attacks inside of Russia, which has been our longstanding policy,” the spokesman said. 

The U.S. has provided the ATACMS surface-to-surface missile and other weapons systems, with the proviso that they not be used to strike targets on Russian territory. That stipulation, which Ukraine agreed to as a condition of receiving the weapons, was intended to reduce the risk that the conflict could escalate into a direct clash between the U.S. and Russia. 

Russia’s foreign ministry warned in September 2022 that the U.S. would “cross a red line” and would be considered a “direct party to the conflict” in the Kremlin’s eyes if it supplied longer-range missiles to Kyiv. 

Since then, however, Russia has turned to North Korea for ballistic missiles and to Iran for drones and used the weapons to step up attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure.

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The U.S. prohibition—and its refusal to supply intelligence that Ukraine could use to attack targets in Russia with Ukraine’s own drones and weapons systems—has constrained Kyiv’s ability to attack Russia’s command posts and where its troops gather on the Russian side of the border.

Russia is moving forces and resources toward northeast Ukraine from the safety of its own territory nearby as it steps up attacks in the Kharkiv region. 

Ukraine’s military said Friday that it was fending off fresh Russian assaults in the Kharkiv area, concentrated in the border city of Vovchansk, where Russia controls northern parts, and villages between the border and Kharkiv.

“Our soldiers are inflicting serious losses on the occupiers,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on a visit earlier this week to the regional capital Kharkiv. “This axis remains extremely difficult, we’re strengthening our units.”

A spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, which is responsible for strikes in Russia, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Brown said that while it doesn’t appear Russia is launching a “large incursion” into Kharkiv, it is aiming, in part, to create a buffer for the Russian border city of Belgorod, which Ukraine forces struck in mid-March.

Last month, Congress passed a long-awaited foreign-aid package, which included more than $60 billion for Ukraine, ending a nearly six-month suspension of the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine. While some of the newly-sent weapons have reached Ukraine’s front-line troops, others won’t arrive until June, U.S. defense officials said. 

During a visit to Kyiv last week, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken deflected a reporter’s question about whether the U.S. would consider lifting its restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S.-provided weapons. “We have not encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine, but ultimately Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it’s going to conduct this war,” he said. 

Earlier this month, as Russia claimed territory in northeast Ukraine, the U.K. suggested Ukraine had the right to use British-supplied weapons against targets in Russia.  

“Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself,” Foreign Secretary David Cameron said at the time. A Russian spokesman described the U.K.’s position as a “direct escalation of tension around the Ukrainian conflict.”

— Alan Cullison in Kyiv and James Marson in Brussels contributed to this article

Write to Nancy A. Youssef at nancy.youssef@wsj.com and Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com

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(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529709&forum_id=2#47670997)

what are your thoughts on the future China Taiwan conflict?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529709&forum_id=2#47671193)

How sadly apathetic.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529709&forum_id=2#47671545)

Its 180.

Does anyone really think Ukraine had all the GPS coordinates for the ammo dumps immediately upon receipt of HIMARS/M270s?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5529709&forum_id=2#47671541)