From heavy artillery to fighter jets, each shift by the Biden administration to provide Ukraine with more potent weaponry has traced a similar path. Months of soul-searching about possible Russian escalation are followed by a belated go-ahead. So it is with Washington’s consent for Kyiv to launch strikes into Russia using US-made long-range missiles. This is welcome — but would have been better if it had come sooner, and with fewer restrictions; permission reportedly extends, for now, only to the Ukrainian-occupied Kursk region of Russia. It should also be only one element of a broader effort by America and its allies to bolster Ukraine’s position on the battlefield before Donald Trump’s inauguration as president.
從重型火炮到戰斗機，拜登(Biden)政府每一次向烏克蘭提供更強大武器的轉變都遵循著相似的軌跡。在對俄羅斯可能采取的升級行動進行了數月的反思之后，拜登政府才會姍姍來遲地部署下一步行動。因此，基輔方面使用美制遠程導彈對俄羅斯發動打擊，是經過華盛頓方面同意的。這值得歡迎——但如果能更早批準并減少限制就更好了；據報道，目前的批準范圍只包括烏克蘭占領的俄羅斯庫爾斯克州。這也應該只是美國及其盟國在唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)就任總統之前，為加強烏克蘭戰場地位所做的更廣泛努力的一部分。