The Biden administration has given Kyiv the green light to use American-provided weapons for limited strikes on Russian territory.
For the embattled Ukrainians, it may be too late.
Battlefield analysts say the Biden administration’s long-awaited decision last week, after public prodding by NATO and European leaders, is the latest example of how repeated U.S. slow-walking of arms deliveries translates directly to Russian gains and Ukrainian losses on the ground.
Ukrainian commanders have said counteroffensive campaigns in the fall of 2022 and the summer of 2023 suffered because of U.S. and allied delays in providing tanks, long-range artillery and other specific capabilities at key moments that could have helped Ukraine score potentially decisive wins.
The pattern seems to be continuing.
Allowing the Ukrainians to conduct limited strikes on Russian targets could help slow Moscow’s military’s advances in eastern Ukraine, but the decision was made months after Moscow seized the momentum and is now deep into a major offensive in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region.
Specialists say Russian President Vladimir Putin has thousands of additional troops in position for that campaign. It’s unclear whether strikes on Russian targets now will have any dramatic deterrent effect on the broader trajectory of the Russian offensive.
Critics say expanded, less-restricted U.S. aid could have had a major effect months ago, before Russia made inroads in the Kharkiv region and before it had fresh personnel and artillery stationed along the front lines. Analysts, lawmakers and other administration critics argue that, once again, the administration’s painfully slow timetable has stunted Kyiv’s momentum and flipped the war in Moscow’s favor.
“The approach has seemed to have been not to actually send aid in the right volumes and quantities, and the type of aid, in such a manner to ensure Ukrainian success, but send enough to evade catastrophe so the Ukrainians don’t fail spectacularly. But not enough to actually have them be too good,” George Barros, the Russia team and geospatial intelligence team lead at the Institute for the Study of War, recently told The Washington Times’ “Threat Status” podcast.
The administration’s repeated delays often come down to fear of escalation against a nuclear-armed Russia and a cornered Mr. Putin. At crucial moments in the war, when the Ukrainians were pleading for tanks, fighter jets, long-range artillery or, most recently, the permission to fire American weapons onto Russian soil, the U.S. appeared scared off by the Kremlin’s rhetoric warning about World War III or nuclear armageddon in Europe.
That tried-and-true Russian playbook is on display once again. Mr. Putin last week warned that the West was “playing with fire” if it allowed Ukraine to strike Russian airfields, weapons depots and other key military sites inside Russian territory. Other top Russian officials reiterated those warnings on Monday.
“I would like to warn American leaders against miscalculations that could have fatal consequences,” said Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, according to Russian state-run media. “For unknown reasons, they underestimate the seriousness of the rebuff they may receive.”
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The administration rejects the narrative that Russia has seized control of the conflict because of the timing of its weapons deliveries. Instead, they blame the Republican-led House, which spent months struggling to pass a major foreign aid package in the face of opposition from a band of hard-line conservatives. The package, which included $61 billion for Ukraine, passed the chamber last month with strong bipartisan support and was immediately signed into law by President Biden.
“The delay that most prolonged this war and made things difficult was the delay in the Congress … when we had a supplemental request submitted in October of last year, and for six months Congress did nothing to get us the kinds of funding we needed to supply Ukraine. And for six months basically, the Ukrainians got nothing from the United States, the biggest contributor of security assistance,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told ABC’s “This Week” program on Sunday.
“And as for the other argument about … the creeping nature of this, what we have done is, as the war has changed in character over the last two-plus years, our support has evolved,” Mr. Kirby said. “In the beginning, [the Ukrainians] needed Stinger anti-air missiles and Javelin anti-tank missiles. Now, they need much more air defense and long-range capabilities. And we continue to provide those capabilities, again, as the war has changed, as Putin has changed his operational strategy.”
U.S. officials argue that the recent Russian concentrated attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city barely a dozen miles from the Russian border, necessitated a shift in policy to allow Ukrainian forces to strike more freely across the border.
Timing is everything
The administration’s position certainly has evolved, but critics say it has evolved far too slowly and the decision to allow strikes inside Russia is too little, too late.
“This decision should have been made before Russia’s recent offensive in Kharkiv, not after. Instead, the Biden administration’s continued handwringing crippled Ukraine’s response, forcing them to stand idly by and watch Russian forces prepare for an imminent attack just across its border,” Republican Reps. Michael McCaul of Texas, Michael Turner of Ohio and Mike Rogers of Alabama, who chair the House Foreign Affairs, intelligence and Armed Services committees, respectively, said in a joint statement last week.
“Once again, President Biden’s policy of slow-walking and half measures is dragging out this conflict without providing Ukraine with a decisive advantage on the battlefield to force Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table as soon as possible,” they wrote.
The administration didn’t publicly announce the policy shift. Instead, it was rolled out through leaks to the press. The Associated Press confirmed the change in an article citing four unidentified U.S. officials.
The new policy also appears limited strictly to strikes on targets related to Russia’s Kharkiv operation. The U.S. position reportedly went into effect on Thursday after NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, French President Emmanuel Macron and other key European leaders had spoken publicly about the need to allow Ukraine to strike inside Russia.
Mr. Barros, the Institute for the Study of War analyst, said this is yet another key inflection point in the war that could have gone differently if the administration had acted more quickly and more boldly.
He pointed to the fall of 2022 when Ukraine desperately appealed for battle tanks from the U.S. and Europe as it mounted its first major counteroffensive and began pushing Russian forces out of key cities that fell during the early weeks of the war. The U.S. sent Abrams tanks to Ukraine, but they arrived months after that counteroffensive had stalled.
“At that time, the debate space in the West was, ‘Do or do we not send the Ukrainians main battle tanks?’” Mr. Barros said. “If the Ukrainians had gotten the tanks sooner, had them fielded and ready, there’s no saying … what they might have been able to do before those [Russian] defensive lines had been dug.”
In the summer of 2023, as Ukraine was again amidst a counteroffensive operation, the debate centered on whether the U.S. should give Ukraine the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS. The administration ultimately did provide ATACMS, but not until early this year, months after Russia could mostly repel the Ukrainian counteroffensive. Some Russian airfields and other key military sites would have been within range of ATACMS.
“Russian attack helicopters were able to successfully take off from an airfield in Zaporizhzhia near the coast … and strike the Ukrainian tanks and armored personnel carriers while they were trying to do their breaching,” Mr. Barros said. “And it’s really unfortunate that that airfield was left intact because there’s no reason why the Ukrainians should not have been able to use a deep strike to be able to take out that airfield.”
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.