$300M for war effort approved by Biden

New aid bolsters defense of Kyiv

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, in a White House briefing Wednesday on new military aid for Ukraine, stressed that officials have been “very clear with the Ukrainians” that the U.S. does not support attacks inside Russia.
(The New York Times/Pete Marovich)
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, in a White House briefing Wednesday on new military aid for Ukraine, stressed that officials have been “very clear with the Ukrainians” that the U.S. does not support attacks inside Russia. (The New York Times/Pete Marovich)


WASHINGTON -- President Joe Biden has approved a new package of military aid for Ukraine that totals up to $300 million and includes additional munitions for drones and an array of other weapons. It comes as Russia has continued to pummel Ukraine's capital and unmanned aircraft have targeted Moscow.

U.S. officials have said there is no suggestion that U.S.-made drones or munitions were used in the Moscow strikes, which the Kremlin blamed on Ukraine but Kyiv has not acknowledged. The Biden administration has said it has made clear to Ukraine that U.S.-made weapons should not be used for attacks inside Russian territory.

"We don't tell them where to strike. We don't tell them where not to strike. ... Ultimately President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and his military commanders decide what they're going to do from a military perspective," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. But he added that the U.S. has been "very clear with the Ukrainians privately, we've certainly been clear publicly, that we do not support attacks inside Russia."

He said Zelenskyy has given the U.S. assurances that the Ukrainians respect those concerns.

The new aid package provides munitions to boost Ukraine's air defense capabilities to fend off Russia's air assaults on Kyiv. It provides munitions for Patriot missile batteries and High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), as well as Avenger and Stinger air defense systems, mine-clearing equipment, anti-armor rounds, unguided Zuni aircraft rockets, night vision goggles, and about 30 million rounds of small arms ammunition and an undisclosed amount of other artillery rounds.

Russian forces began June with a fresh aerial bombardment of Kyiv on Thursday, killing at least three people and wounding others, authorities said.

Russian forces hit the capital in the early morning, damaging apartment buildings and a medical clinic. Two of the dead were children, according to city officials.

The toll of injured fluctuated in preliminary reports, but the casualties still were the most from one attack in the past month.

Moscow was targeted by a rare drone attack on Tuesday that lightly damaged residential buildings. Russian officials say the West, which throughout the grinding war has sought to keep the conflict from expanding beyond Ukraine, has not adequately condemned the attack on Russian soil.

Asked about Moscow's criticism that the West is quietly supportive of attacks inside Russian territory, Kirby scoffed that the Russians are "not going to believe anything I have to say" on the matter.

He said the U.S. has made clear that it will not change its policy about not enabling or encouraging strikes inside Russia, but added, "I don't think we're going to take it upon ourselves as a burden to privately communicate that to the Russians."

Ukrainian officials rejoiced over Tuesday's drone attack but avoided claiming responsibility, a response similar to what they have said after previous attacks on Russian territory.

U.S. officials did not provide details on the drone munitions in the new aid package or specify which unmanned aircraft would use them. The Defense Department has given Ukraine a variety of unmanned aircraft over the past year, for both surveillance and attacks, including at least two versions of the Switchblade, a so-called kamikaze drone that can loiter in the air and then explode into a target.

Including the latest aid, the U.S. has committed more than $37.6 billion in weapons and other equipment to Ukraine since Russia attacked on Feb. 24, 2022. This latest package will be done under presidential drawdown authority, which allows the Pentagon to take weapons from its own stocks and quickly ship them to Ukraine, officials said.

RISK OF ESCALATION

The U.S. and European allies urged caution on whether Ukraine should have the right to strike inside Russia, amid concerns that a potential escalation could drag them into a broader war.

Countries supporting Ukraine are taking varying stances on how it should beat back Moscow's invasion, as Russian territory is increasingly targeted. The U.S. has publicly leaned against the strategy of attacks within Russia.

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told reporters in Estonia this week that Ukraine "has the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia's ability to project force into Ukraine itself." Cleverly, who said he wasn't commenting on Tuesday's drone strikes on Moscow, added that "legitimate military targets beyond its own border are part of Ukraine's self-defense."

But other allies are more cautious. While France backs Ukraine's right to defend itself, French military support should not be used to attack Russia, a French official said. The official added that if Ukraine wants to do more with its own forces, it's not France's place to dictate to Kyiv how to conduct the war.

Another European diplomat said that allies tend not to discuss the question because it is divisive.

Russia has faced minor attacks on its own territory for months, including this week when Russia said five drones aimed at Moscow were shot down and three intercepted by electronic jamming. The city's mayor said several residential buildings were damaged in the attack. Nobody was hurt.

'OPERATIONAL CHOICES'

Russian regions near Ukraine have come under fire repeatedly in recent weeks, with officials ordering some residents in the Belgorod region to evacuate their homes. A drone attack caused a fire at the Afipsky oil refinery in southern Russia's Krasnodar region, the local governor said on his Telegram channel Wednesday, adding that it was later extinguished.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was reluctant to be drawn out on the use of Western weapons to attack Russia. "The operational choices about how they use the weapons must be made by Ukrainians themselves," Stoltenberg told reporters in Oslo on Tuesday, ahead of a two-day meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers. "There are difficult choices."

Kirby told CNN on Wednesday that once Washington provides systems to the Ukrainians, they get to decide what to do with the arms. "Now, they have given us assurances that they won't use our equipment to strike inside Russia. But once it goes to them, it belongs to them," Kirby said.

"We don't want our systems, we don't want to encourage or enable, attacks inside Russia," Kirby added.

The U.S. last month dropped its reluctance to allow allies to train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets. Biden has said he received assurances from Zelenskyy that Kyiv wouldn't use the aircraft to move into Russian territory.

Latvia first suggested last year that Ukraine should be free to strike military sites inside Russia as it fends off attacks on its critical infrastructure. "We should allow Ukrainians to use weapons to target missile sites or air fields from where those operations are being launched," Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said at the time.

The UK last month agreed to provide Ukraine with long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles to help it counter Russian offensives. The weapons, which were jointly developed by the UK and France, have a firing range in excess of 250 kilometers (155 miles) and are the longest-range missiles yet provided to Ukraine by Western allies.

Information for this article was contributed by Aamer Madhani and Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press and Natalia Drozdiak, Ania Nussbaum, Ott Ummelas, Iain Marlow, Sylvia Westall, Alex Morales and Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News (TNS).

  photo  National Security Council spokesman John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 31, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
 
 


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