USA announced this Friday that it relaxed a little more the permits on the weapons it supplies to Ukrainenow allowing his Army attack targets inside Russia, beyond the Kharkiv front, with long-range missiles, whenever it is an act of self-defense. This news, however, does not imply a change in White House policy.
For months, the Kremlin has been launching offensives against Ukrainian sites from its territory so, given kyiv’s inability to order maneuvers beyond its border, The enemy enjoyed a certain “safe zone”. That is why the Pentagon considered that “if Russia is attacking or is about to attack Ukraine from its territory, It only makes sense to allow Ukraine to respond to forces attacking it from across the border.”.
General Pat Ryder said, in that sense, that “by seeing that these forces carry out these types of operations from the other side of the border, we have explained that Ukraine can and has the right to counterattack to defend itself.” “It’s not about geography, it’s about common sense,” defended Charlie Dietz, another of the Pentagon spokespersons.
He also added that Ukrainian troops “can use the air defense systems supplied by the United States to shoot down Russian aircraft if they are about to fire on targets in Ukrainian airspace or even if such aircraft fly within Russian space.”
With this announcement, President Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the defense of Ukraine, which has been under siege by Russian maneuvers since February 2022.
In an attempt to continue strengthening the kyiv Army, the day before Washington also reported that it had decided paralyze deliveries of Patriot and NASAM missiles to other countries, in order to prioritize shipments to Ukraine and expedite supplies.
“Many of our allies and partners have also taken historic steps but obviously more is needed and it is needed now. The Government has made the difficult but necessary decision to change short-term plan priorities of military sales deliveries to other countries to go to Ukraine instead,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
The Ukrainian Army “desperately needs additional air defense capabilities,” he insisted, following the words of Zelensky, who noted that these allow protect “cities and civilians”which are one of the Kremlin’s main objectives.
Thanks to this, he continued, these systems – it is estimated that hundreds of them – will reach their destination “in the coming weeks, before the end of summerfor sure”, when Moscow could further intensify its attacks, in the run-up to winter.
For his part, Zelensky said he was “deeply grateful to the President and the United States for prioritizing Ukraine in delivering the air defenses we critically need to defeat the Russian attacks.”
(With information from AP)
