The Biden administration continues to reiterate its frequent refrain that it supports Ukraine, though it has not lifted restrictions on how Kyiv uses the weapons America provides it as requested.
Maj. Gen. Patrick Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday that the department’s policy on how Ukraine uses U.S. weapons to hit targets in Russian territory has not changed despite months of Ukrainian requests for the restrictions to be lifted. The restrictions continue to pose significance, given Ukraine’s operations in the Kursk area of Russia slightly over the border.
The Pentagon has seen “indications of Russia moving a small number of forces into the Kursk region to respond” to Ukraine’s incursion, he said, and Ryder added, “Generally speaking, though, Russia has really struggled to respond.”
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov on Monday, and the two discussed “battlefield dynamics, Ukraine’s ongoing operations, and Ukrainian reconstitution and training efforts,” according to a readout of the call from Ryder.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that Ukraine did not inform its allies ahead of the brazen cross-border assault designed to create a “buffer zone” to prevent the possibility that allies would dissent from the plan.
“Just a few months ago, many people around the world, if they had heard that we were planning such an operation like the one in the Kursk region, would have said that it was impossible and that it would cross the strictest of all the red lines that Russia has,” he said. “That is why, actually, no one knew about our preparations.”
Zelensky, in these remarks, reiterated his plea for the United States and Western allies to lift the restrictions that only allow Ukraine to use weapons provided by them to hit military targets just over Russia’s border. Ukraine cannot use weapons provided by the U.S. and some other Western allies to hit military targets further inside Russian territory.
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“I emphasize that the format of Putin’s response to the operation in the Kursk region demonstrates that there is no single rational reason to deny us true power, true long-range capabilities,” Zelensky said. “And the situation on the Donetsk front is such that any further delay by our partners in terms of long-range capabilities is becoming de facto, perhaps, the most effective support for Russia’s offensive potential.”
Ukraine had not been allowed to use U.S. weapons in Russia at all until mid-May when President Joe Biden approved Ukraine’s use of U.S.-provided weapons after Russia began attacking Kharkiv from right over the border in Russian territory.