A group of key Republicans has urged US President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to strike targets within the Russian Federation, according to a report by CNN.
In their letter to Biden, the Republicans argued that fears of escalation are unfounded: “Neither Ukraine’s use of US-provided weapons in Russia nor its military incursion into Russia’s Kursk region — the first foreign occupation of Russian territory since World War II — have triggered a Russian escalatory response,” they wrote. they stated.
The letter was signed by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael Turner, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, House Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee Chairman Thomas Kean, and Helsinki Commissioner Richard Hudson.
“As long as it is conducting its brutal, full-scale war of aggression, Russia must not be given a sanctuary from which it can execute its war crimes against Ukraine with impunity,” the letter says.
US intelligence assessments indicate that over 90% of Russian warplanes are stationed at airfields located 300 kilometers from Ukrainian-controlled territory, which currently puts them out of reach of ATACMS systems. “We expect this number to continue to increase. For example, Russia recently relocated its glide bomb missions from two airfields, which were located closer to the front, farther east to airfields that are outside of the range of ATCMS,” the official said.
However, a CNN source reported that according to Ukrainian officials, there are military targets, including weapons production facilities, that lie within the range of ATACMS.
“The Institute for the Study of War assesses that, excluding airfields, there are over 200 legitimate military targets within range of U.S.-provided weapons to include military bases, logistics nodes, fuel depots, ammunition warehouses, and command and control systems,” they wrote.
An anonymous US official also revealed that Ukraine has already used the majority of the ATACMS missiles from the batch of one hundred supplied by the US.
US officials expect Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who traveled to Ukraine on September 11, alongside British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, to gather insights on how potential longer-range strikes would fit into Ukraine’s overall battlefield strategy. The UK is also weighing the possibility of allowing Ukraine to conduct deeper strikes inside Russia using its own long-range Storm Shadow missile system.
“We’ll be listening intently to our Ukrainian partners. We’ll both be reporting back to the prime minister, to President Biden in the coming days. And I fully anticipate this is something they’ll take up when they meet on Friday,” Blinken said.
Previously, On September 11, US President Joe Biden stated that discussions regarding lifting the ban on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons are currently underway.
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