The U.K. government’s assertion of Ukraine’s legitimate targeting strategy is a model the Biden administration should follow.
The Ukrainian government has not taken responsibility for the attack on Russia’s Belgorod region last week, which was supported by artillery fire from inside Ukraine. Nor has Ukraine claimed credit for the drone strikes that are becoming a regular feature of life in the Russian capital or similar attacks on Russian infrastructure that have been ongoing for months. Why would it? One of Kyiv’s foremost Western sponsors, the Biden administration, has repeatedly warned Ukraine against striking Russian-based targets — even those that serve as staging areas for the invasion of Ukrainian territory.
John Kirby, the White House’s National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, reiterated that warning as recently as last week. “We don’t want to encourage or enable that,” he told reporters. “We certainly don’t want any U.S.-made equipment used to attack Russian soil.” But another of Kyiv’s crucial Western backers, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government, apparently disagrees with the Biden administration’s cautious approach.
Not only does Ukraine have the “legitimate right to defend itself,” said U.K. defense minister James Cleverly on Tuesday, but Kyiv also reserves “the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”
“So legitimate military targets beyond its own border are part of Ukraine’s self-defense,” Cleverly continued. “And we should recognize that.”
The Biden administration might draw a fine distinction between Ukraine’s legitimate interest in attacking targets inside Russia that support the invasion of its territory and the White House’s opposition to using hardware it provides Ukraine for those operations, even though U.S.-provided weapons platforms are most capable of executing those operations. That is, at least, a discrepancy that might be teased out from the comments issued by Biden administration officials. But Cleverly’s assertion of Ukraine’s legitimate targeting strategy exemplifies the clarity that should meet Russia’s assault on the U.S.-led world order: In invading and annexing Ukrainian territory, Russia has forfeited the expectation that Ukraine must observe its sovereign borders.
For nearly a year, Ukraine’s defenders have expressed frustration over the diplomatic restrictions imposed on its capacity to disrupt Russian-based staging areas. “Russians are using [Multiple Launch Rocket Systems] like Grad, Smerch or Uragan from their land on civilian populations in Kharkiv,” Ukrainian defense minister Oleksii Reznikov told the Wall Street Journal last June. “We need to find solutions to this. It’s a problem.” The anti-missile batteries Kyiv long ago requested and only recently received have neutralized some of the threat posed by long-range Russian ordnance fired from inside the Federation proper, but only partially.
But the barrage of attacks on Ukraine coming from inside Russia has intensified. The fusillade is growing more indiscriminate and more reckless than what Ukraine has previously had to endure. And yet, to avoid offending the Biden administration, the Kyiv government must pretend it cannot respond in kind.
The Biden administration seems comfortable with this fiction. The White House seems increasingly invested in the evidentiarily lacking assumption that Russia is holding some escalatory tactic in reserve if the red lines administration officials draw in their own heads are crossed. But the British government has had enough of the charade. Good for them.
If our objective is to see this war concluded on terms favorable to Ukraine — and, by extension, the West — as soon as possible, the Biden administration should follow London’s lead.