The United States announced this Friday that it has further relaxed the permits on the weapons it supplies to Ukraine, now allowing its Army to attack targets inside Russia, beyond the Kharkiv front, with long-range missiles, as long as it is a act of self-defense. This news, however, does not imply a change in White House policy.
For months, the Kremlin has been launching offensives against Ukrainian sites from its territory so, given the impossibility of kyiv to order maneuvers beyond its border, the enemy enjoyed a certain “safe zone.” That is why the Pentagon considered that “if Russia is attacking or is about to attack Ukraine from its territory, it only makes sense to allow Ukraine to respond to the forces that attack it from the other side of the border.”
General Pat Ryder said, in that sense, that “by seeing that these forces carry out these types of operations from the other side of the border, we have explained that Ukraine can and has the right to counterattack to defend itself.” “It’s not about geography, it’s about common sense,” defended Charlie Dietz, another of the Pentagon spokespersons.
He also added that Ukrainian troops “can use air defense systems supplied by the United States to shoot down Russian aircraft if they are about to fire on targets in Ukrainian airspace or even if such aircraft fly within Russian space.”
With this announcement, President Joe Biden reaffirmed his commitment to the defense of Ukraine, which has been under siege by Russian maneuvers since February 2022.
In an attempt to continue strengthening the Kiev Army, the day before Washington also reported that it had been decided to halt deliveries of Patriot and NASAM missiles to other countries, in order to prioritize shipments to Ukraine and expedite supplies.
“Many of our allies and partners have also taken historic steps but obviously more is needed and it is needed now. “The Administration has made the difficult but necessary decision to reprioritize the short-term plan for military sales deliveries to other countries to go to Ukraine instead,” said White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
The Ukrainian Army “desperately needs additional air defense capabilities,” he insisted, following the words of Zelensky, who pointed out that these allow them to protect “cities and civilians,” which are one of the Kremlin’s main objectives.
Thanks to this, he continued, these systems – it is estimated that hundreds of them – will reach their destination “in the coming weeks, before the end of summer, for sure,” when Moscow could further intensify its attacks, in the run-up to winter.
For his part, Zelensky said he was “deeply grateful to the President and the United States for prioritizing Ukraine in delivering the air defenses we critically need to defeat the Russian attacks.” Source: Infobae
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2024-06-22 23:02:01