Will the West let Ukraine strike deep inside Russia?
Over the past two and a half years, restrictions on military aid for Ukraine have been relaxed many times. Another red line could soon be redrawn.
Let Ukraine “strike legitimate, I repeat, legitimate military targets in the depths of Russia,” was the plea today from Kyiv’s foreign minister in Brussels, as he urged his EU counterparts to persuade the US to lift all remaining restrictions on donated long-range weapons.
“The EU can and should play a role in persuading the United States to make this decision happen,” said Dmytro Kuleba, who has previously expressed frustration that western allies have been requiring Ukraine to “fight with one hand tied behind its back” because of the strings that come attached to military aid.
The question of whether to allow Kyiv to use western-supplied weaponry to hit targets on Russian soil has been a highly delicate one since Putin launched his full-scale invasion two and a half years ago.
Fearful of enraging a nuclear-armed Putin, western countries have relied on a logic that giving Ukraine weapons to use on its home turf counts as legitimate self-defense, while allowing it to send missiles across the border is an escalatory attack.
But, as the war grinds on, the flawed logic behind such a distinction has become increasingly apparent.
In May, French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged this, as he joined the head of NATO in calling for the West to “allow Ukraine to neutralise the Russian military sites from which missiles are fired”.
He added: “If we tell (the Ukrainians) you do not have the right to reach the point from which the missiles are fired, we are in fact telling them that we are delivering weapons to you, but you cannot defend yourself,” declared Macron, during an official visit to Germany.
Ukraine would have appreciated the sentiment. Though it would have helped rather more if it had come from one of the countries actually delivering the weapons-in-question.
Britain, the US and Germany have all put restrictions on Kyiv’s use of the long-range missiles they have donated.
In May, Washington and Berlin relaxed the rules, authorising Ukraine to use long-range weapons to hit some targets on Russian soil specifically for the purpose of “counter fire purposes in the Kharkiv region”, but US officials insisted that the overall position of banning the use of long-range strikes inside Russia hadn’t changed. In other words, the official policy became even more muddled.
Meanwhile, Britain’s position is ambiguous, perhaps intentionally so.
Since May last year, the UK government has sent Kyiv an undisclosed number of Storm Shadow missiles which can hit precise targets up to 190 miles away.
On Tuesday, Starmer refused to be drawn on whether Ukraine is allowed to use the missiles to hit targets inside Russia.
According to reports earlier this week, Britain secretly supports Ukraine using these weapons to strike deep inside Russia but will not publicly back the move amid fear of provoking a row with Washington.
Shadow Storm missiles rely on US systems to operate, meaning they require the permission of Washington.
Over the past two and a half years, restrictions on military aid for Ukraine have been relaxed many times. Another red line could soon be redrawn.
Kuleba’s trip to Brussels today comes as Ukraine’s defence minister, Rustem Umerov prepares to visit Washington this week. According to POLITICO, Umerov will, in a last-ditch effort to change minds, present an extensive list of long-range targets in Russia he believes Kyiv’s military can hit if Washington were to lift its remaining restrictions on US weapons.