President Trump, Thursday morning, after Russia bombed an American-owned company in Ukraine, Trump declared on Truth Social: “It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invaders country. It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defense, but is not allowed to play offense. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia. Crooked and grossly incompetent Joe Biden would not let Ukraine FIGHT BACK, only DEFEND. How did that work out?”

The Wall Street Journal, Saturday:

The Pentagon has for months been blocking Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles to strike inside Russia, U.S. officials said, limiting Kyiv from employing a powerful weapon in its fight against Moscow’s invasion.

A high-level Defense Department approval procedure, which hasn’t been announced, has prevented Ukraine from firing any U.S.-made long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms, against targets in Russia since late spring, the officials said. On at least one occasion, Ukraine sought to use Atacms against a target on Russian territory but was rejected, two officials said.

…Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for policy, developed the “review mechanism” to decide on Kyiv’s requests to fire long-range U.S.-made weapons as well as those provided to Ukraine by European allies that rely on American intelligence and components.

The review gives Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth final say over whether Ukraine can employ the Atacms, which have a range of nearly 190 miles, to strike Russia.

It would be nice if the Trump administration reflected the policy preferences of the president, but apparently that’s just asking too much. It feels like only yesterday that President Trump was getting asked about the U.S. halting arms shipments to Ukraine, and the president asking who had ordered that change, because he knew nothing about it. (It wasn’t yesterday, but it was July 8.) As I asked then, “If the secretary of Defense or any other Pentagon official wants to make a change as consequential as cutting off U.S. aid to an embattled free people under daily and nightly bombardment of civilian targets . . . it’s a good idea to check with the boss, isn’t it? Is that really too much to ask?”

If the president wants Ukraine to FIGHT BACK (his capitalization, not mine), then perhaps in addition to posting on Truth Social, he could call up Hegseth and Colby and make his policies explicitly clear.