Ukraine plans long-range strikes on Russia within ‘days’ after US lifts ban

Ukraine plans to launch long-range missile strikes on Russia “in the coming days” after the Biden administration lifted its restrictions on Kyiv’s use of US-supplied ATACMS missiles to hit military targets deep inside Russian territory, Reuters reported on Sunday.

The significant shift in US policy towards the war was largely a response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops to fight alongside its army, which “caused alarm in Washington and Kyiv”, two anonymous sources familiar with the decision told Reuters.

Reuters and The New York Times both said that initial Ukrainian strikes would likely target Russian and North Korean forces in Russia’s southwestern Kursk region, where the Russian military is currently attempting to drive out the Armed Forces of Ukraine, who established a foothold there following a surprise cross-border incursion into Russian territory in August.

While the sources said they did not expect the decision to fundamentally alter the course of the war, one of its goals was to send a message to North Korea that “their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them”, The New York Times reported, adding that Biden could later authorise further strikes beyond the Kursk region.

It was not clear if US President-elect Donald Trump would reverse the decision when he takes office in January, Reuters said.

French daily Le Figaro initially suggested that the UK and France had followed Washington’s lead and given Kyiv permission to use their Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles to strike targets inside Russia as well, but later revised its report.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has long lobbied Kyiv’s Western partners for permission to strike deep inside Russia, did not directly confirm the move, but reiterated that long-range strikes formed part of his “victory plan”.

Describing one of his plan’s key elements as “providing our army with long-range capabilities,” Zelensky said in his nightly address to the nation on Sunday that while there had been “much said” in the media, “strikes are not carried out with words. These things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves.”

In September, Vladimir Putin warned that if the West permitted Kyiv to launch long-range missile strikes on Russia, it would find itself “at war” with Russia and that Moscow would “make corresponding decisions based on the threats that will be posed to us”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday that while Russia’s stance had been “clearly and unambiguously formulated” by Putin in September, the reported policy change in Washington represented “a new round of tensions” and “a new situation in terms of the US involvement in this conflict", state news agency TASS reported.

Several other Russian politicians expressed their fury at the US decision, however, warning of potentially catastrophic outcomes, with Senator Andrey Klishas writing that the decision could lead to “what remains of Ukraine losing its statehood entirely” and Senator Vladimir Dzhabarov calling it a “major step towards World War III”.