Freed From Restraints, Ukraine Is Poised to Strike Into Russia

AE Kramer, M Santora, A Kurmanaev

Ukraine on Monday welcomed a decision by the Biden administration to allow long-range strikes inside Russia with American-provided missiles, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggesting that the first launches would come soon and without warning. Ukrainian officials have long argued that firing at targets deeper inside Russia would unshackle the country’s military from restraints that have prevented it from effectively taking the fight to Russia.

U.S. officials said the missiles were likely to be deployed, at least initially, against combined Russian and North Korean troops in territory Ukraine has captured in the Kursk region of southern Russia. The addition of up to 10,000 North Korean troops to Moscow’s war effort this fall has alarmed the United States and European nations, who view it as widening the war by drawing Russian allies directly into the ground combat. The North Korean presence appeared to be what persuaded the White House to shift its stance on long-range missiles after months of resistance.

Zelenskyy, in his nightly address to the nation Sunday, suggested there would be no warning of the first launches. “Blows are not inflicted with words,” he said. “Such things are not announced. The rockets will speak for themselves.” The shift by the Biden administration may clear the way for Britain and France to provide similar weapons for Ukraine to use for strikes into Russia.

In Moscow on Monday, the Kremlin said the Biden administration’s decision to allow Ukrainian forces to strike targets in Russia was a major step toward a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. “This escalates tensions to a qualitatively new level,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. He accused the Biden administration of “continuing to add oil to the fire and provoking the buildup of tensions around this conflict.”

The shift in the White House stance will allow Ukraine to use a ballistic missile system called ATACMS (pronounced “attack ’ems”), an abbreviation for Army Tactical Missile System. With a range of 190 miles, these missiles would allow Ukraine to strike military targets that it says would degrade Russia’s military, such as garrisons, logistical hubs and munitions depots that are beyond the reach of its artillery and shorter-range rockets.

The policy shift comes on the heels of months of bleak military setbacks for Ukraine along the front line. Short of troops, Ukraine has resorted to shifting soldiers to reinforce hot spots, leaving the areas they vacated vulnerable. Russia has advanced as much as a mile a day in the southern Donetsk region, its fastest pace since early in the war.

Away from the front, Russia has pummeled Ukrainian military and civilian targets with near nightly drone and missile barrages. In a daylight attack Monday afternoon, a Russian ballistic missile hit a residential building in Odesa, setting it alight and killing at least eight people, local authorities said.

An attack Sunday night on the northeastern city of Sumy killed 11 people, including two children, and injured nearly 90 others, Ukrainian officials said. The Biden administration agreed last year to supply several hundred ATACMS to the Ukrainians for use on Ukraine’s own territory, including the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula. The Ukrainian military has since used many of these missiles in a campaign of strikes on military targets in Crimea and it is unclear how many remain in Ukraine’s arsenal.

But Ukraine remained frustrated for months by the White House’s refusal to grant permission for longer-range strikes into Russian territory. U.S. officials and military analysts have said that firing a limited number of ballistic missiles at targets in Russia would not significantly impact the dynamics of the war but could quickly help troops facing the offensive in the Kursk region.

The Ukrainians could use the missiles to hit North Korean troops as a way of discouraging North Korea from sending more; that appeared to be one of the main reasons for the White House’s shifting position. A brigade commander fighting in Kursk said Monday that he thought the ATACMS could help Ukraine strike logistical hubs, ammunition depots, key pieces of equipment and supply lines supporting the attack.

“The question is how many of them we have and what the supply of these munitions will look like,” the commander said by telephone, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to publicly discuss military operations. Much would depend, he said, on the Ukrainian military intelligence agency’s ability to find North Korean troop concentrations and other targets on Russian territory.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based research organization, released an interactive map this summer plotting 225 military installations within the range of ATACMS, including missile brigades, storage facilities, radar installations, airfields used to stage attack helicopters, repair depots, ammunition warehouses and logistics hubs.

A Ukrainian official familiar with the negotiations between Ukraine and the U.S. said Ukraine had been waiting and fighting for this decision for over a year. “We’ve always simply said that the greater our long-range capabilities, the faster we will defend Ukraine and end this war,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations.

In his comments to reporters Monday, Peskov referred to statements by President Vladimir Putin in September, saying that permission for longer-range strikes would constitute evidence that the West was escalating its showdown with Russia.

Ukraine could only use such long-range systems, he said, with the help of NATO personnel and satellite guidance. In effect, he argued, that would turn those countries into participants in the war. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia,” he said during a government meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia.