The German government announced Friday that Ukraine can use German weapons to combat Russian cross-border attacks, a reversal of policy that came a day after President Biden similarly gave Kyiv permission to use U.S.-provided arms to hit limited military targets in Russia.
For weeks, as Russia unleashed a brutal new assault on Ukraine’s northeast Kharkiv region, reoccupying some towns and villages and bombing relentlessly, Ukrainian officials had pleaded with their biggest Western supporters to lift long-standing restrictions on the use of donated weapons to hit targets on Russian soil — a prohibition that the White House had insisted was necessary to limit the chances of a direct conflict between Russia and NATO countries.
The Ukrainians had long complained that the restrictions effectively left their military fighting with one arm behind their backs, allowing Russia’s forces to advance and to inflict far higher casualties on Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.
Despite the limits, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials for months have insisted that Russia is fighting not only Ukraine but the United States and other NATO allies.
“Attempts to strike Russian Federation with U.S. weapons demonstrate U.S. involvement in the conflict in Ukraine,” Peskov told journalists. “We know that, in general, American-made weapons are already being used to attempt strikes on Russian territory. We have had enough of this, and it is more than eloquent evidence of the extent of the United States’ involvement in this conflict.”
In the lead-up to a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Prague, key European allies pressed to lift restrictions. On Thursday, the White House said Biden did just that, granting Ukrainian forces the ability to hit back at Russian forces attacking them in and around Kharkiv.