Biden Prepares to Approve Ukraine’s Use of Western Long-Range Weapons in Russia

European officials say President Biden appears to be preparing to pave the way for Ukraine to deploy long-range Western weapons deep into Russian territory, as long as it does not use weapons provided by the United States.

The issue, long debated within the administration, culminated on Friday with the first official visit to the White House by Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer.

Britain has signaled to the United States that it is keen to let Ukraine use its long-range “Storm Shadow” missiles to strike Russian military targets far from Ukraine’s border. But it wants explicit permission from Mr Biden to demonstrate a coordinated strategy with the United States and France, which produces a similar missile. US officials said Mr Biden had not yet made a decision but would hear from Mr Starmer on Friday.

If the president approves, the move could help Ukraine hold its ground after seizing Russian territory, as it did during the Russian surprise attack on Kursk region. But Mr. Biden has been hesitant to allow Ukraine to use American weapons in a similar way, especially after warnings from US intelligence agencies that Russia could respond by helping Iran target US forces in the Middle East.

On Thursday, White House officials insisted there was no imminent decision on the use of US-made surface-to-surface missiles. Army tactical missile system — known as ATACMS. But Biden himself has signaled that an easing of restrictions is coming. He was asked on Tuesday whether he would be willing to accede to increasingly urgent requests from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“We are addressing that right now,” he said.

If Mr Biden allows the UK and France to proceed, and if he follows through in the coming weeks by authorising the use of ATACMS, it could be his final push for military aid to Ukraine.

In silence, Senate Republican leaders, particularly Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, have urged a strong response — a sharp break with former President Donald J. Trump, who refused to say during Tuesday night’s presidential debate that he wanted Ukraine to win, or that Russia should withdraw from the roughly 20 percent of Ukrainian territory it has seized since the war began.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin issued an unusually specific warning to the West, noting that Ukrainians alone cannot operate long-range missiles because they require Western technical assistance and satellite guidance.

“This means that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia,” Putin said, according to a Kremlin report. “And if that is the case, then, taking into account the change in the nature of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions to respond to the threats we will face.”

For the United States, assessing the level of trust in Mr. Putin is a difficult task. Over nearly 31 months of war, the pattern has been clear: At every stage, Mr. Biden has worried that providing new weapons to Ukraine or allowing Ukrainian troops to fire on Russian territory would cross one of Mr. Putin’s red lines.

In the early months of the war, Mr. Biden reluctantly provided Ukraine with HIMARS artillery, then M1 Abrams tanks, F-16 fighter jets, and short- and long-range ATACMS. But in each case, as the administration discovered that Mr. Putin seemed less eager to escalate the war than it had initially anticipated, it loosened the reins.

In the spring, Mr. Biden first approved allowing Ukraine to fire on Russian artillery and other targets just across the Russian border, to avoid giving Mr. Putin’s forces a safe haven to attack the cities and towns around Kharkiv. That authority was later expanded. But striking border areas is essentially a defensive operation. Senior White House officials said there were still concerns about using American ATACMS to strike deeper than 60 miles into Russia.

In classified briefings, US intelligence officials have expressed deeper concerns about direct, visible US involvement in Ukraine’s move to seize and hold positions near Kursk. They have warned that there are signs that Russia may be providing technological support that could allow Iran and its proxies to attack US forces in the Middle East. This week, the administration accused Iran for the first time of shipping missiles to Russia for use in warfare, a charge Tehran has denied.

In a series of meetings with senior administration officials in recent weeks, Ukrainian officials have argued that their seizure of territory practically inside Russia proves that U.S. fears of crossing Russia’s red lines are overblown. Those Ukrainian officials argue that the United States should allow Kyiv to use American weapons to strike deeper into Russia.

Speaking after one of the meetings in Kyiv on Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken told reporters that he and Mr. Zelensky, along with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, “discussed the long-range strikes, as well as a number of other issues.”

“We will take what we learn back to President Biden in my case, and the prime minister in David’s case. The two of them will meet in Washington in just a few days to discuss how our countries will continue to support Ukraine.”

For a growing number of military analysts and former US officials, the administration’s silence is absurd, especially when, they say, Ukraine’s attack on Kursk has yet to result in an escalatory response from Moscow.

“Easing restrictions on Western arms will not cause Moscow to escalate,” 17 former ambassadors and generals wrote in a letter to the administration this week. “We know this because Ukraine has attacked territory that Russia considers its own—including Crimea and Kursk—with these weapons, and Moscow’s response has not changed.”

Senior Ukrainian officials showed up at the Pentagon two weeks ago to make a similar argument to Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III. Ukraine’s new defense minister, Rustem Umerov, argued that the Kursk incursion showed that Russia’s red lines were nothing more than intimidation that had slowed Western efforts to help Ukraine.

Mr. Umerov argued that with the Kursk attack, Ukraine had demonstrated that it could invade and even occupy Russian territory without triggering World War III, according to two officials.

But US officials said it was too early to draw that conclusion, given the many ways Mr. Putin could retaliate. During the meeting, Mr. Austin asked Mr. Umerov several questions about what locations inside Russia Ukraine might target, probing to make sure Ukraine would focus on military sites like airports, but not power plants or other civilian infrastructure. Mr. Austin also asked his Ukrainian counterpart what such targeting might accomplish.

Mr. Austin remains convinced that using U.S. weapons to strike long-range at Russia would not change the course of the war, in part because there are not enough ATACMS — or British and French missiles — to sustain an attack.

At Ramstein, a US air base in Germany, last Friday, Mr. Austin added that easing controls on Ukraine’s use of ATACMS would not solve one of the biggest problems facing Ukrainian cities and the military — so-called glide bombs launched from Russian attack aircraft deep inside Russia.

“When we look at the current battlefield, we know that the Russians have actually moved their glide bomber aircraft out of range of the ATACMS,” said Mr. Austin.

The United States has supplied Ukraine with hundreds of long-range ATACMS, but its stockpile is running low. U.S. officials worry that they cannot provide enough of those munitions to inflict serious damage on many Russian targets.

Umerov’s counterargument — made during a meeting at the Pentagon, officials said — was that even if ATACMS were not a game changer, they could still be used effectively to attack Russian sites inside Russia and disrupt Russian logistics.

“The strikes would help degrade Russia’s military capabilities, and Russia has used weapons and components from Iran, China, and North Korea against targets in Ukraine,” said Seth G. Jones, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Meanwhile, Maj. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday that the new shipment of short-range ballistic missiles from Iran to Russia sets a dangerous precedent that could lead to more shipments.

“One has to assume that if Iran were to supply Russia with these types of missiles, it would most likely not be a good one-off deal,” he said. “That this would be a capability that Russia would seek to exploit in the future.”

Report contributed by Lara Jakes in Jerusalem, Edward Vuong in Kyiv and Peter Baker in Washington.