“Long considerations, but Joe Biden believes the right time is now.” This is how CNN White House correspondent Kevin Liptak commented on the outgoing president’s decision to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons supplied by the United States to Ukraine to strike Russia even from miles away. A source inside the government revealed to Reuters that Kyiv is preparing to carry out an attack as early as the next few days.
This is a significant and different stance than those taken so far that allows Kyiv to use the army’s tactical missile system to attack targets that may be even deep in Russia, far from the war front. Moscow had warned that it would view a possible easing of Biden’s stance as an escalation of the conflict.
Liptak calls it “the right time” for a number of factors. First, Russia appears to have the advantage, thanks to the 10,000 troops sent from North Korea to the northern front of Ukraine to support the Russian advance. Therefore, being able to use long-range U.S. supplies would allow Kyiv to counterattack and present itself in a better position should peace talks begin.
In addition, Biden is about to leave the White House as his administration comes to an end. During the campaign over the past few months, Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut off funding to Ukraine and end the war as quickly as possible without giving any explanation as to how this would happen.
The two administrations could not be more different. Right now, Biden is in Brazil, visiting the Amazon rainforest, the first such visit by a sitting U.S. president, to emphasize its importance and his government’s commitment to respecting the environment as much as possible. In his first term Trump withdrew from the Paris accords. Biden’s visit to the Amazon is only one in a weeklong trip to South America: in recent days he attended the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Lima, Peru, where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping; then he will stop in Manaus and Rio de Janeiro for the G20.
