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Key points
- US President Joe Biden will allow Ukraine to use US-supplied long-range weapons to attack Russia.
- The decision follows Russia's deployment of North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces.
- Russia has warned that it would view a move to relax restrictions on Ukraine's use of US weapons as a major escalation.
US President Joe Biden's administration has allowed Ukraine to use US-made weapons to strike deep inside Russia, two US officials and a source familiar with the decision said.
It is a significant reversal of US policy in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Ukraine plans to carry out its first long-range strikes in the coming days, the sources said, without disclosing details due to operational security concerns.
The US move two months earlier follows months of requests from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to allow the Ukrainian military to use American weapons to hit Russian military targets far from the border.
The change comes largely in response to supplement its own forces, a development that has caused alarm in the U.S. and Ukraine, according to a U.S. official and a source familiar with the decision.
Zelenskyy said the missiles would “speak for themselves.”
“Today many in the media say that we have been given permission to take appropriate measures,” he said in his Sunday evening speech.
“But strikes are not done with words. Such things are not announced.”
The White House and the US State Department declined to comment.
Russia warns of major escalation
Russia has warned that it would view a move to relax restrictions on Ukraine's use of US weapons as a major escalation.
The US decision to allow Ukraine to attack deep into Russia with American long-range missiles could lead to World War III and will require a quick response, said Vladimir Jabarov, first deputy head of the Russian House of Representatives Committee on International Affairs, according to TASS. news agency.
Andrei Klishas, a senior member of Russia's upper house of parliament, said the escalation is “of such a level that by morning it could end with a complete ruin of the Ukrainian state.”
Ukraine's first deep strikes are likely to be carried out using ATACMS missiles, which have a range of up to 306 kilometers, according to the sources.
Some U.S. officials are skeptical that allowing long-range strikes will change the course of the war, but the decision could help Ukraine, especially since and potentially put Ukraine in a better negotiating position when and if there is a ceasefire.
It is not clear whether Trump will reverse Biden's decision if he takes office. Trump has long criticized the extent of US financial and military aid to Ukraine without explaining how.
A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But one of Trump's closest foreign policy advisers, Richard Grenell, criticized the decision.
“The wars will escalate before he leaves office,” Grenell said in a social media post in response to the news.
Russia launches biggest attack on Ukraine in months
Meanwhile, Ukraine's national grid operator said all regions would experience temporary restrictions on energy supplies due to Russia's massive airstrike on the energy system.
Russia unleashed its biggest airstrike on Ukraine in almost three months on Sunday, killing seven people and further hampering an already damaged energy system.
In a statement, the state's electricity transmission system operator, Ukrenergo, said workers were repairing the damage as quickly as possible.
After Sunday's strike, Ukrainian officials confirmed damage to critical infrastructure or power outages in regions from Volyn, Rivne and Lviv in the west to Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia in the southeast.
The extent of the damage has been difficult to estimate because authorities reveal little about the outcome of the strikes and the state of the energy network, which Russia targeted with an air campaign earlier this year.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it had launched a massive attack on energy facilities that power Ukraine's military-industrial complex.
