By Syntetic Dreams @Adobe Stock
Serhii Kuzan of War On The Rocks reports that the boundaries of Ukraine’s defense are defined by international law yet are hindered by restrictions imposed by its partners. Removing these restrictions would complicate any build-up of Russian reserves on the border and their advance deeper into Ukraine’s northern regions. Kuzan writes:
Two years ago, on May 31, 2022, President Joe Biden announced in his New York Times op-ed that the United States would provide Ukraine with high-mobility artillery rocket systems. The op-ed noted that the White House neither encourages nor allows Ukraine to launch strikes outside its borders. “We don’t want to prolong the war just to hurt Russia,” Biden wrote at the time. Today, the restrictions are being eased, but U.S. officials assure that the overall policy on attacking targets in Russia has not changed — long-range strikes deep into Russian territory are still prohibited.
However, the war has been going on for two-and-a-half years now, and Russia is still waging it relentlessly. Russia is using guided aerial bombs to strike cities with populations of over one million, including Kharkiv. Russia also has recently destroyed 80 percent of Ukraine’s thermal generation and one-third of its hydroelectric generation, and Ukrainians are now facing an extremely difficult winter. In addition, with his recent statement on the eve of the June peace summit in Switzerland, Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed that he can only be stopped by force. The idea of allowing Western weapons to strike Russian territory is increasingly gaining support among Western leaders, a point Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to drive home in Washington on the sidelines of the NATO Summit. Along these lines, it looks like, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer changed U.K. policy when he said, on July 9, that Ukraine could use British long-range Storm Shadow missiles to strike Russia, Bloomberg reported.
The discussion about the possibility of responding to Russian aggression within the framework of international law began on May 3, 2024, with a statement by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron. He said that Ukraine has the right to strike targets in Russia with British weapons because Moscow is shelling Ukrainian territory. So far, more than a dozen countries have supported Ukraine’s right to respond symmetrically to Russia using weapons produced by them.
Nevertheless, the United States remains the most important country in this matter. Only Washington can quantitatively and qualitatively cover the needs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for long-range weapons. The United States is currently the only country that has the appropriate stockpiles of a wide range of long-range weapons. If Washington were to grant permission to Ukraine to use these to strike military targets in Russia, the impact could encourage other allies of Ukraine to help with their own long-range weapons, such as Germany’s Taurus cruise missiles. […]
At the moment, the delay in making such a decision is negatively affecting the security of Ukrainian cities and the situation at the front. Such a change is a strategic issue, and Ukrainians cannot wait for Moscow to expand the front by going on the offensive in northern Ukraine or other regions.
Strikes on targets in Russia could help the Ukrainian Armed Forces seize the initiative on the battlefield and reduce the enemy’s military potential, which does not only threaten Ukraine. To do this, Ukraine’s allies should implement their own long-term strategy to counter Russian aggression.
Read more here.
If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.
