Will Biden’s approval of Ukraine using U.S. long-range missiles to strike Russia matter?

WASHINGTON —  Two months before President-elect Trump moves into the White House again, President Biden has reportedly made a major change in U.S. policy toward Ukraine, authorizing it for the first time to use U.S.-supplied missiles to hit targets deeper inside Russia.

Moscow responded angrily on Monday, with the Kremlin warning of potential escalation. Ukraine’s public reaction was positive but muted, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying any long-range missiles by Ukraine’s forces to take aim at Russia would “speak for themselves.”

The step, reported over the weekend by multiple news outlets, comes at a pivot point in a punishing war — as Ukraine this week marks 1,000 days since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion. Trump, as a candidate and as president-elect, has said he wants a speedy end to the fighting, while Ukraine fears it will be forced to make painful concessions, including ceding territory Russia has already seized.

Here’s some background on what’s behind Biden’s move, and its potential repercussions on and off the Ukraine battlefield.

Why now?

Ukraine, pummeled nightly by deadly Russian missile attacks on its cities, has pleaded for months for permission to use U.S.-provided longer-range weaponry to hit airfields and missile installations well inside Russia. Up until now, Biden said no.

But U.S. officials have lately been citing what they call a significant escalation on Moscow’s part: the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to fight on the Russian side. And Biden and his aides have publicly pledged to set in motion as much help for Ukraine as possible before Trump takes over.

What does Moscow say?

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the move amounted to “adding fuel to the fire.” And speaking to reporters in Moscow, he pointedly referred back to a menacing statement by Putin in September. The Russian leader said then that allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia would mean that the United States and its NATO allies “are at war with Russia.”

Putin also declared over the summer that Russia could provide longer-range weapons to others in order to hit Western targets, and suggested — as he has previously — that Russia could use nuclear arms if it feels sufficiently threatened.

What kind of U.S. weapons are involved?

The system in question is the Army Tactical Missile System, ATACMS, known colloquially as “attack ‘ems,” with a range of about 190 miles.

If ATACMS are employed, it wouldn’t mark the first time American weapons were used by Ukraine inside Russia. This past spring, as Russia was making a push in the eastern region of Kharkiv, imperiling Ukraine’s second-largest city, the Biden administration allowed use of the U.S.-supplied HIMARS, or High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, with a 50-mile range, to strike at targets across the border.

Ukraine has long used domestically produced weapons, such as drones, to harry Russia with strikes that sometimes target Moscow itself.

Will it make a difference on the battlefield?

Analysts said the step might give Ukraine more ability to stave off Russian attacks on its cities, but pointed out that Moscow has already moved some aircraft and missile installations out of reach. Also, they said that the U.S. supply of ATACMS is far from unlimited — and that Trump could retract the permission as soon as he takes office.

“It’s not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination,” Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, in Scotland, wrote on his Substack. But he added that the move might be “far less than the sum of its parts” due to timing and potential limitations.

How did Ukraine take the news?

Ukrainian commentators applauded the step, but many bleakly opined that it was too little, too late. Zelensky, in his nightly address to the nation Sunday, suggested that there was little advantage to telegraphing any plans for such strikes ahead of time.

“Strikes are not made with words,” he said. “Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves.”

Biden took a low-key approach to unveiling the news, eschewing a formal announcement in favor of having senior officials relay the decision to media outlets over the weekend.

Additionally, the terms of use have not been made public — whether, for example, Ukraine will be limited to targets in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukrainian troops staged a surprise push in August and where Russia has been massing forces and weaponry to drive them out.

How does the U.S. presidential transition play into this?

Trump has little desire to inherit, in the longer term, a war he has derided as expensive and pointless. (His Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, argued that allowing Russia to benefit from attacking a sovereign neighbor without provocation endangered all of Europe and the West.)

At the same time, Trump relishes the idea of being perceived as a deal maker. In order to strike an accord early in his term, he could seek to strong-arm Ukraine, which is struggling on the battlefield, into making concessions that it up until now has deemed unacceptable, including permanent loss of territory and neutral status.

In addition, the U.S. transition from the Biden administration to the new Trump one coincides with a crucial stretch of time for Ukraine, which fears Russia will use the time between now and January to destroy the country’s battered power grid, depriving Ukrainian civilians of heat and light heading into the coldest winter months.