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.
Paradoxically, Trump’s vow to stop the fighting in Ukraine once he is president will make the intervening weeks only more hazardous. Both sides will be battling to strengthen their hand ahead of any negotiations. Russia has already begun, by stepping up its bombardment of Kyiv’s energy infrastructure — including an attack on Sunday that was one of the largest of the war.
Moscow has also provocatively deployed 10,000 North Korean troops to Kursk, engaging third-country soldiers in the conflict in a far more direct manner than US personnel may be involved in targeting long-range missiles for Kyiv. Large portions of Russia’s weapons are already provided by North Korea or Iran. The Kremlin’s claim that it is Washington, with its missiles permission, that is “pouring fuel on the fire” is arrant hypocrisy.