Tom Rogan
President Joe Biden has approved Ukraine’s use of long-range US weapons for strikes against military targets inside Russia. It might seem contradictory, but this decision actually helps his successor Donald Trump’s looming effort to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine.
Biden’s actions will mean Ukraine can use the ATACMS missile system to reach targets up to 190 miles inside Russia. The UK and France, which have been pushing the US President to make this decision for more than a year now, are highly likely to provide Ukraine with approval to use their own Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles against Russian targets. They were hesitant to do so without prior US approval, due to the risk of allowing Vladimir Putin to fragment Nato’s deterrent posture. But what does this development mean for the future of the war?
At the tactical level, the main benefit for Ukraine is that it can now damage far more key targets in Russia. What’s more, the very threat of these weapons will force Russian and North Korean military units of all kinds to take far greater precautions in concealing their whereabouts.
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