Since Russia launched a new offensive on the Kharkiv region, Ukraine is once again trying to force the Biden administration to cancel the ban on the use of American weapons for strikes on the territory of Russia. As a main argument, senior Ukrainian officials say that the ban on strikes with American weapons prevented Ukraine from attacking Russian positions when they were preparing the final offensive on Kharkiv.
Politico writes about it.
This week, a group of Ukrainian parliamentarians is in Washington to enlist the support of Congress on this issue. They claim that the ban on the use of American weapons for attacks on the Russian Federation "ties the hands" of the Ukrainian military, since Ukraine needs to hit military depots on enemy territory for its own defense.
Ukrainian authorities watched the Russians mass near the border for weeks, but because of Washingtonʼs policy, Ukraine could not use US-provided weapons to launch a pre-emptive strike.
As a condition for providing long-range weapons to Ukraine, the Biden administration announced that they cannot be used on Russian territory. This restriction has been in effect since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation on February 24, 2022 and is a certain obstacle for Ukraine in resisting Russian aggression.
Russia is well aware of this limitation, which is why it was able to concentrate military equipment and at least 30 000 soldiers on the border, without fear of being hit by US-supplied ATACMS ballistic missiles, which Ukraine used to destroy the enemy on the front.
"We saw how their soldiers were sitting one or two kilometers from the border, and there was nothing we could do about it," said Oleksandra Ustinova, the head of the temporary investigative commission on monitoring the receipt and use of international material and technical aid during martial law.
Two American officials in a comment to the publication confirmed that the policy of the Biden administration has not changed so far.
"The aid is intended for defense, not for attacking Russian territories," said one of the officials on condition of anonymity.
Russian offensive on Kharkiv region
On the morning of May 10, Russia launched a new offensive in the Kharkiv region, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said. He emphasized that the Defense Forces knew about the plans of the occupiers in the region and were preparing a counterattack. Later, the General Staff of the Armed Forces reported that the occupiers "wedged themselves into the defense." Currently, the operational situation remains complex and dynamically changing. Currently, the battles for Vovchansk continue. So far, the enemy has had tactical success.
According to DeepState, on May 12, the enemy occupied the villages of Morokhovets, Oliynikove and Zelene and continues to move towards the village of Lyptsi. Active fighting continues for Lukyantsi, which the enemy has almost completely occupied. The occupiers are also trying to gain a foothold in Hlyboke and are making their way to Vovchansk. The city is under heavy shelling, the evacuation of the civilian population is ongoing.
The prosecutorʼs office reported that Russian troops captured Ukrainian civilians during the offensive in the Vovchansk community. Local residents were placed in a basement on May 11, and some of them managed to escape and reach the volunteers on May 13. The prosecutorʼs office started a pre-trial investigation into the violation of the laws and customs of war.
- This month, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Ukraine has the right to use weapons provided by London to strike targets in Russia, and it is up to Kyiv to decide whether to do so.
- This spring, Ukraine began to actively attack Russian refineries. On March 13, an oil refinery caught fire in Ryazan, Russia, after a drone attack. Earlier, drones attacked a refinery in Nizhny Novgorod Oblast and an oil depot in Oryol. At the same time, the oil refinery of the Lukoil company in the Nizhny Novgorod region lost part of its capacity due to the attack. On March 17, another oil refinery in the Krasnodar region caught fire in Russia after a drone attack. At the end of April , the Russian refinery in Slovyansk-on-Kuban partially stopped work after a drone attack. Because of all this, Russia ran out of gasoline. The Financial Times wrote that the US even called on Ukraine to stop attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, as this could raise world oil prices and provoke attacks on Ukrainian energy in response.