Attacks on Russia: how will Putin react?

Better late than never, said The Daily Telegraph. For weeks, President Zelenskyy has been begging Washington to allow Ukrainian forces to use US-supplied missiles against targets inside Russia.  

The ban on doing so had left Ukraine's second city, Kharkiv, exposed to a cross-border bombardment and led to "the patently absurd scenario that Moscow's forces could gather, unmolested, as little as four kilometres from the targets in Ukraine they were about to attack en masse". Last week, under pressure from European allies, President Biden relented, permitting Kyiv to use US weapons against military targets inside Russia – but only in areas bordering the Kharkiv region. Elsewhere, their use will still be limited to Ukrainian territory.

'Some immediate relief'

The easing of restrictions will be of "significant tactical benefit" to Ukraine, said Matthew Savill on Rusi.org. Its forces have been hitting targets in Russia throughout the war, but these have taken the form of risky sabotage operations or long-range drone attacks. As Ukraine's drones are slow and have a limited payload, such attacks rely on sheer numbers to beat defences and are often of limited effectiveness. Kyiv needed firepower it could "bring to bear rapidly and with little warning". It now has that (and has already used it to strike targets in Russia). This will complicate matters for Russia and provide "some immediate relief to Ukrainian forces", but it won't, in itself, transform Kyiv's position.

'A symmetrical response'

Biden's move was prompted by concerns that Ukraine is "gradually losing the war", said Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times. It also reflects the fact that the US and its allies are less worried than they used to be about President Putin's nuclear sabre-rattling, now that they've called his bluff so many times already in Ukraine. But some Western officials remain uneasy about the idea of Western-supplied weapons striking Russian territory. They fear it could lead Moscow to "make what it regards as a symmetrical response – involving counterstrikes on Nato territory". 

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Caution is warranted in this situation, said The Washington Post. The Biden administration is right to impose strict conditions on how its weapons are used. It wouldn't want them to be deployed in ill-advised attacks, such as Ukraine's recent drone strike on Russian early-warning radars that help safeguard against a mistaken nuclear launch. On the other hand, giving Kyiv the means to stop Russia raining bombs on civilians in Ukrainian cities seems fully justified. Kyiv should be given "leeway" to use the weapons in other areas, within the same constraints. It's a calculated risk well worth taking to help Ukraine defeat an egregious act of cross-border aggression.