Breaking: U.S. lifts ban on Ukraine missile strikes in Russia

President Joe Biden has granted Ukraine permission to use U.S.-made weapons known as ATACMS on long-range strikes into Russian territory, The Washington Post, Reuters and The New York Times report.

The move is meant to send a signal to North Korea.

The Hermit Kingdom has deployed approximately 10,000 troops to the Kursk region, where Ukrainians hold Russian territory. WaPo writes: “One U.S. official said the move is in part aimed at deterring Pyongyang from sending more troops.”

Meanwhile, France and the United Kingdom have authorized Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with SCALP/Storm Shadow missiles, Le Figaro writes. Because of critical American components, this requires a U.S. blessing.

The news is being met with support from some, but also painful frustration from those who had hoped it would come earlier. 

“The impossible always seems so until it is no longer,” the Institute for the Study of War’s George Barros told Counteroffensive.Pro: “Well overdue but welcome news.”

How will strikes inside Russia with ATACMS change the situation? 

The range of ATACMS extends up to 300 km, or around 185 miles.

ATACMS can use cluster munitions, which are extremely effective for attacking concentrated enemy positions. One type, known as the M39 Block 1, contains 950 bomblets.

Ukraine could also use ATACMS to greatly disrupt Russian logistics and command-and-control of units behind enemy lines.

“The effects depend entirely on what kind of strike packages we're enabling. If we take out all the brigade HQs and other key enabling infrastructure, that would have an immediate effect,” Barros said. “If we trickle it and only allow the Ukrianian[s] to interdict North Koreans in surgical strikes, then the effect, while good, will not be as disruptive as I would hope.”

The Times wrote that the weapons system was “likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region.”

The Washington Post reported that the Biden administration had approved “limited” strikes inside Russia but was vague as to what that meant exactly. One U.S. official told the Post that the policy change would have a "very specific and limited effect.”

This could continue to hamstring Ukrainian efforts.

“The Biden Administration's shift to allow ATACMS use in Russia is a good thing, but it must extend beyond Kursk Oblast,” Barros argued. “I also think it important to stress that there are hundreds of valid, legal, legitimate, and operationally consequential military targets in range of UkrainianCMS.”

One of major headaches for Ukraine are Russian fighter jets known as the Su-34, which often use glide bombs to target Ukrainian territory. They cttack Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv or Sumy outside the range of Ukrainian air defense. That causes a lot of damage inside border cities.

One of the most effective ways to prevent the bombing of Ukrainian cities is to strike Russian airfields inside its territory. Ukraine has already attacked some of them with drones, but ATACMS is a much more accurate and devastating weapon.

The ban on using Western supplied arms on Russian territory is gradually being eased with changes in war. The Russian offensive in the Kharkiv region in May led to permission to use HIMARS guided rockets with a range up to 70 km, or around 40 miles.

Ukraine tried to get permission to strike with ATACMS for months. On the last day of August, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv handed over a list of targets deep in the Russian Federation to the U.S. 

“We have shown that the airfields they use to strike our cities are within the range of long-range strikes,” said Umerov.

The Biden administration had previously banned Kyiv from using US-made ballistic missiles inside Russia because, its officials claimed, it was escalatory in a disproportionate way.

A U.S. intelligence assessment earlier this year warned that Russia could respond to the move by stepping up acts of sabotage against U.S. or European assets, or even conducting lethal attacks on U.S. bases.

The American calculation on this policy has shifted slowly, and under great pressure.

First, it came out that Iran is supplying Russia with its Fath 360 ballistic missile, with a range of up to 120 km (~75 miles). The US and the UK imposed additional sanctions on Iran for transferring these weapons.

January 2025 will bring a second Trump term to Washington, D.C., and this policy change also has the effect of making the new administration decide whether to reverse or continue the Biden White House’s course.

The arrival of North Korean troops into the conflict also marks a severe escalation in worldwide implications of the war.

“The problem is that such decisions come chronically at least a year late, greatly mitigating their effect on the strategic situation and repeatedly giving the Kremlin way too much time to unfold and bolster its own war machine,” wrote the war correspondent Illia Ponomarenko two months ago, when Ukrainians were anticipating the policy change (it didn’t come until now).

[ED NOTE: We first began preparing a story on this topic on September, and it has been gathering dust until today.]