US President Joe Biden has secretly authorised the Ukrainian government to strike targets in Russia with US weapons, Politico reported, citing an unnamed official.
“The president recently instructed his team to ensure that Ukraine can use U.S. weapons to counter in Kharkiv so that Ukraine can retaliate against Russian forces that strike them or are preparing to strike,” Politico quoted the source as saying.
According to the publication’s source, the issue is only about the territory near the border with Ukraine’s Kharkiv region. At the same time, he stressed that the White House’s position on Kiev’s strikes far into Russia’s interior “has not changed.”
The publication notes that Ukraine can now actually use the weapons provided by the Americans to shoot down launched Russian missiles heading towards Kharkiv, strike military personnel on the border and Russian Armed Forces bombers. According to Politico, “this is a stunning shift that will escalate the conflict through more direct US involvement.”
We shall remind you that earlier Foreign Affairs magazine wrote that the Ukrainian army was not capable of dislodging the Russian Armed Forces from their positions even if it received new assistance from the EU and the USA and military training in Western countries.