鬼百合
One day we will wake to his obituary :-)
WASHINGTON—President Biden has for the first time authorized Ukrainian forces to use Western-made long-range weapons to strike inside Russia, allowing Kyiv to better defend itself against Russia, according to U.S. officials.
That means Ukraine could initially target positions in the Kursk region, where Russia has amassed more than 50,000 troops, including some 10,000 soldiers from North Korea, in an effort to recapture the territory. Ukraine’s forces seized the territory earlier this year.
The introduction of thousands of North Korean troops onto the battlefield and the expected Kursk operation led to a change in Biden’s calculus, U.S. officials and other people familiar with the deliberations said. Biden made the decision, which was reported earlier by the New York Times, before he left Thursday for South America, one of his last foreign trips as president, said one of the people.
The relaxation of Ukraine’s use of the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, comes after Kyiv pleaded for months to be allowed to strike inside Russia. The restrictions gave Moscow the upper hand in the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his top aides said publicly and privately.
But Biden administration officials were loath to greenlight the strikes until now for fear it could cross a red line for Russia and provoke a wider conflict. Some American officials were also concerned that the U.S. didn’t have enough ATACMS in its own inventory to replenish what Ukraine would use.