RTMon, 25 Nov 2024 20:58 UTC
Ukraine can use ATACMS to strike in the vicinity of Kursk Region, John Kirby has said
Washington on Monday officially confirmed a well-flagged policy change allowing Ukraine to strike inside Russia using US-supplied ATACMS missiles.
Numerous international officials have spoken about the change in stance over the past week. While US President Joe Biden and his administration remained silent, Kiev fired a volley of ATACMS projectiles at Russia's Bryansk Region last Monday.
"They are able to use ATACMS to defend themselves in an immediate-need basis," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters at a White House briefing on Monday.
"We did change the guidance and gave them guidance that they can use them to strike these particular types of targets," Kirby said, referring to the Ukrainian attacks "in and around Kursk."
The US and its allies have provided increasingly powerful weapons systems to Kiev since 2022, while maintaining that it does not make them a party to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine's use of long-range weapons would change the character of the hostilities and make NATO a direct participant. He explained that weapons such as the ATACMS or the UK-supplied Storm Shadow cannot be deployed by Kiev's forces without the participation of NATO military personnel.
Moscow's response came last Thursday, when a brand-new hypersonic ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, was used against the Yuzhmash military-industrial complex in Dnepropetrovsk. Putin called it a "combat test" of the new weapon and said such tests would continue depending on circumstances.
Comment: It looks like quite a number of Western leaders didn't get the message which Putin conveyed the other day, when a new hypersonic missile was used by Russia. Some are slow learners. The Biden administration might well want to make it hard for Trump to make a peace deal. Whether that will happen is another question as there are still almost 2 months until the inauguration, a time in which a lot of things can happen.
See:
NewsReal: Russia Sends NATO Missile Message, Will NATO Back Down?
Comment: It looks like quite a number of Western leaders didn't get the message which Putin conveyed the other day, when a new hypersonic missile was used by Russia. Some are slow learners. The Biden administration might well want to make it hard for Trump to make a peace deal. Whether that will happen is another question as there are still almost 2 months until the inauguration, a time in which a lot of things can happen.
See: NewsReal: Russia Sends NATO Missile Message, Will NATO Back Down?