Bombs away?

In Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken finally uttered the word "win" in describing the U.S. goal in Ukraine and appeared to OK Ukrainian strikes with U.S. .weapons on Russian territory.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (L) and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba at a May 15, 2024, press conference in Kyiv. (U.S. State Department)

BY BRIAN BONNER

Ukraine and its allies have been annoyed, to say the least, about two aspects of U.S. policy involving Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

The first annoyance is the lack of a clearly announced strategic goal that America wants Ukraine to defeat Russia and win this war. Instead, Biden administration officials have muttered works about supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes.” At the same time, the weak-kneed National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, a godfather of failed “escalation management,” is wrong. He has said the goal is to merely put Ukraine in the strongest possible position at future negotiations with Russia to end the war. Memo to Sullivan: There are no peace talks to be had with Russia because the Kremlin cannot be trusted, as Vladimir Putin’s track record shows, but they can be defeated if you get a clue.

The second annoyance is the prohibition on Ukraine from striking territory inside Russia with U.S.-supplied weapons. This is also a grave mistake that is costing Ukrainians lives and land. Russia routinely attacks Ukraine from its territory and, in the most recent invasion that opened a new front in northeastern Kharkiv Oblast on May 10, massed thousands of its troops on the border with Ukraine, unable to take them out. Ukraine has already shown in Russian-occupied Crimea that it can use these weapons to devastating effect.

On Wednesday in Kyiv, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared to discard both points of contention – saying not once, but twice, that the American goal is for Ukraine to win. He also said that striking targets inside Russia is up to Ukraine.

“The United States is committed to helping ensure Ukraine wins this war. I think we have shown that through the extraordinary support we have provided and continue to provide,” Blinken said at a joint press conference in Kyiv with his counterpart, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “We have not encouraged or enabled strikes outside of Ukraine, but ultimately, Ukraine has to make decisions about how it’s going to conduct this war, a war it’s conducting in defense of its freedom, of its sovereignty, of its territorial integrity. We will continue to back Ukraine with the equipment it needs to succeed, that it needs to win.”

Bombs away? Unfortunately, no

So does this mean bombs away? That Ukrainians are now free to use the dozens of U.S.-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles, capable of precision strikes on targets 190 miles away, to destroy threats from within Russia?

Not so fast, say those in the know.

“No, unfortunately,” member of parliament Oleksandra Ustinova, the head of Ukraine's parliamentary commission on arms and ammunition, told Brian Bonner when asked whether Ukraine is now free to strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-supplied weapons. “But we are working on it.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker, who also served as U.S. special representative to Ukraine, remains unconvinced.

“It is GREAT that he said that,” Volker told Brian Bonner in an emailed response to Blinken’s remarks. “But he said it midway in his remarks, and there is no plan to execute that as a goal. It is good that he said it, but he said it without conviction. We need to turn that statement into real conviction -- reverse engineer HOW to help Ukraine win, and then do it!  We are not there yet, but his remarks give us an opening to get there.”

Volker told Brian Bonner in an earlier interview for his Hromadske Radio program that his “biggest frustration” is the U.S. failure to articulate and execute a clear strategy for Ukrainian victory.

“It will take the Biden administration deciding that they want Ukraine to win the war,” Volker told the “Ukraine Calling” program. “Everything you hear is, we will stand with Ukraine as long as it takes. We’ll provide assistance. We’ll provide economic support. But you never hear the clear goal: ‘We want Ukraine to defeat Russian forces in Ukraine, period.’ Because if you had that clear goal, you wouldn’t put limits on the equipment.”

Probably every Ukrainian agrees with Volker’s position, which aligns with such astute commentators on the war as exiled Russian opposition leader Garry Kasparov and retired U.S. Lt. General Ben Hodges. After all, it only makes sense.

Meanwhile, the campaign is building to pressure President Joe Biden’s administration to let Ukraine strike military targets inside Russia with Western-supplied weapons.

Finland long ago said it was OK. UK Foreign Minister David Cameron, visiting Kyiv recently, gave the go-ahead for Ukraine to use the UK’s long-range Storm Shadow missiles to pulverize targets inside Russia. The U.S. Helsinki Commission, a human rights monitor, said on X May 15 that the Biden administration’s policy is wrong. “Russia’s imminent advance on Kharkiv threatens the lives of over a million civilians & jeopardizes Ukraine’s defense. The U.S. must not only allow but encourage the Ukrainian Armed Forces to strike Russian forces firing & staging in Russian Federation borders and share intelligence to prevent massive loss of life.”

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, also strongly condemned the Biden administration policy in its May 15 report.

“A Ukrainian operation to strike systems in Russia that are directly supporting Russia's offensive ground operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast would be an inherently defensive effort, and to characterize such an effort as "offensive" would be inaccurate,” the think tank wrote. “ISW recently assessed that US limitations on Ukraine's ability to strike military targets in Russia have created a sanctuary in Russia's border areas from which Russian aircraft can conduct glide bomb and missile strikes against Ukrainian positions and settlements and where Russian forces and equipment can freely assemble before entering combat. This US policy is severely compromising Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russian offensive operations in northern Kharkiv Oblast.”

Politico reported on Tuesday about a campaign by Ukrainian lawmakers visiting Washington to lift the ban.

“The main problem right now is the White House policy to limit our capability” to strike military targets inside Russia, David Arakhamia, chair of the ruling Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian parliament, told Politico.

Striking targets inside Russia might have prevented or at least prevented Friday’s invasion of the northeastern Kharkiv region in the view of Ustinova.

"We saw their military sitting one or two kilometers from the border inside Russia, and there was nothing we could do about that," Ustinova told Politico.

Prediction: Just as he has so many times before, I believe that Biden will reverse his policy and say “bombs away” to Ukraine’s legitimate need to neutralize threats coming from Russian territory. Russia has escalated in every way possible short of nuclear weapons, which not even Putin is crazy enough to use. If Biden wants Ukraine to win this war, as Blinken said in Kyiv, it needs to start acting like it and give Ukraine everything it needs to get the job done.