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President Joe Biden’s decision to ease some restrictions on the use of U.S. weapons against Russia in Ukraine is a small but significant step in the two-year war, Reuters reported.
01.06.2024 07:30 , Updated: 08:49
photo: SITA/AP, Yevgeny Maloletka
Ukrainian soldiers sit on a bus after returning from captivity during a prisoner exchange in the Sumy region of Ukraine, Friday, May 31, 2024. 75 prisoners, including four civilians, were sent back to Ukraine in a recent prisoner exchange with Russia. It was the fourth prisoner exchange this year and the 52nd since Russia invaded Ukraine. A total of 3,210 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians have returned home since the war began.
emphasize
- The war in Ukraine has lasted 829 days
8:49 On Friday, Russian forces attacked the Donetsk region in the east of the country, killing one Ukrainian civilian and injuring three others. The region’s governor, Vadym Filaškin, said the attack targeted the village of Drobyševe. Four houses were completely destroyed, the governor added. This was reported by the Kiev Independent website.
8:10 There is growing evidence that Russia used weapons illegally imported from North Korea during its aggression in Ukraine, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said at a security conference in Singapore, according to Reuters.
Shin said in a speech at the Shangri-La Security Forum, Asia’s largest, which runs until Sunday, that “military cooperation between Russia and North Korea” was raising tensions on the Korean peninsula and “also has an impact on the situation on the European battlefield.”
Shin pointed out that if North Korea continues to receive military technology from Russia in return, there is a direct threat that North Korea’s conventional military potential will improve significantly. At the same time, he called on China to play a more active role in efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula.
When asked by reporters whether South Korea might seek to possess its own nuclear weapons, the South Korean defense minister responded that South Korea trusts the global system of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and that a stronger alliance between South Korea and the United States is an appropriate response to North Korea’s national program to develop those weapons.
7:30 On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised U.S. President Joe Biden on the X social network for allowing Ukraine to use U.S.-supplied weapons to strike targets on Russian territory.
“I appreciate Joe Biden’s decision to use Ukraine’s defense capabilities. This is a welcome step that will now allow us to better protect Ukraine and the Ukrainian people from Russian terror and attempts to expand the war,” the Ukrainian president wrote.
Zelensky said it was necessary to continue taking similar steps, “which would provide the democratic world with a strategic advantage in this confrontation, which determines not only the fate of Ukraine.”
“There is no doubt that we will work together to restore a just peace and guarantee security,” he added, thanking everyone for their support.
U.S. foreign policy chief Antony Blinken briefed the United States on Friday on the permission to use American weapons against targets in Russia. The minister said Ukraine had requested an easing of restrictions on the use of American weapons after weeks of Russian attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and an offensive in the border region of Kharkiv.
Meanwhile, Russia said it knew nothing about this specific U.S. decision. “However, we know in general that there have been attempts to attack Russian territory with American-made weapons,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. He believes this speaks volumes about the extent of U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s decision to ease some restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons in Russia is a small but significant step in the two-year war that experts say could help blunt Russia’s cross-border offensive in Kharkiv, Reuters reported.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Biden administration has argued that it is too risky to allow Ukraine to attack targets on Russian territory with U.S.-supplied weapons, fearing that a major Ukrainian attack could spark a direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
The regulation dovetails neatly with other U.S. bans, which have also since been lifted, on supplying Kiev with high-end weapons, from advanced U.S. fighter jets to long-range countermeasure missiles.
Biden administration officials said the latest decision, which took effect Thursday, was tailored to the fighting in the Kharkiv region. U.S. officials said the agreement allows Kiev to use U.S.-supplied weapons to strike back against Russian forces that cross the border “to attack or prepare to attack” them.
Experts say this gives Ukrainians on the front lines a green light to fire at Russian troops using U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) launchers equipped with General Multiple Launch System (GMLRS) guided missiles and other weapons.
“This could stabilize the front line and perhaps create conditions to push the Russians out of the Kharkiv region before they dig in deeper,” said Mykola Bereskov, a researcher at the Ukrainian Institute for National Strategic Studies, an official think tank in Kiev.
Philip Ingram, a former British military BroadCast Unitedligence officer, said Biden’s decision would reduce the need for Kiev to withdraw its troops from the key front in the eastern Donbas region and the Russians would have to “reassess the strategy they used to attack Kharkiv.”
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