U.S. officials call for allowing Ukraine to shoot U.S. weapons into Russia

Senior U.S. officials are increasingly calling for permission to use Western weapons against targets in Russia.

The New York Times reported on this.

Since the first batches of defense aid from the United States in 2022, Ukraine has been under an absolute ban on strikes with transferred weapons against facilities located in the Russian Federation.

However, according to the NY Times, the consensus around this policy is crumbling. The repeated Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region and numerous strikes from the Russian border have sparked a heated debate about easing the restrictions.

After his visit to Kyiv last week, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken changed his position and called on the US president to revoke the ban, as he is currently the main supporter of this policy.

Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson also supported the authorization to use US weapons on Russian territory. He shared this with the reporters on May 22.

“They have to be able to fight back. And I don’t think it’s right for us to micromanage that effort,” Johnson said, commenting on the Ukrainian military’s efforts to stop the Russian invasion.

On May 22, a group of U.S. congressmen called for Ukraine to be allowed to use U.S. weapons to strike Russian soil.

The appeal states that Ukrainians cannot effectively defend themselves because of the policies of the Biden Administration.

“Our Ukrainian allies are requesting authorization to use certain types of U.S.-provided weapons to conduct operations against strategic targets inside Russia and Russian-controlled territory.

It is important that the Biden administration empower Ukraine’s military leadership to conduct the full range of operations necessary to respond to Russia’s unprovoked attack on their sovereign soil,” the congressmen’s letter reads.

The congressmen also emphasized the need to increase the number of Ukrainian pilots training to fly F-16s and to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense.