Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday urged Western nations to lift restrictions on the use of donated weapons against Russian territory, telling military and defense leaders gathered in Germany they should not restrain his country’s ability to battle the Kremlin’s forces.
“We think it is wrong,” Zelensky said in his first in-person appearance at a U.S.-led forum of nations providing arms to Ukraine. “ … We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine but also on the Russia territory, yes, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace.
But Zelensky’s appeal, delivered at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at a U.S. military base in western Germany, yielded little apparent progress as Kyiv’s chief military backer, the United States, signaled no immediate change to its restrictions on the use of longer-range U.S.-made arms like the Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS).
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who hosted the meeting at Ramstein Air Base, said the Biden administration shares Ukraine’s sense of battlefield urgency. But he appeared to rule out any notion that Washington is ready to change its policy on the use of U.S. weapons deeper within Russia, the world’s largest nuclear power.
“There’s no one capability that will, in and of itself, be decisive in this campaign,” Austin told reporters after the meeting. “We had this discussion about tanks; we had this discussion about other capabilities.”
While Washington has repeatedly set aside concerns about escalation with Moscow since the war erupted in February 2022, yielding to Ukrainian requests to access more powerful weapons or use them in new ways, it is unclear when or if that will happen with Zelensky’s latest pleas. For now, the Biden administration permits Ukraine to use U.S.-provided missiles only in limited cross-border strikes on military targets from which Russian attacks originate.
Austin described the case made by Ukraine as an “interesting argument” but noted that Moscow had already moved key weaponry to sites far inside Russia, meaning easing U.S. restrictions on Ukraine’s use of its arms would not change the war’s overall military balance.
“It’s not just one thing,” Austin said. “It’s the combination of capabilities and how you integrate those capabilities to achieve objectives.”
The public impasse underscores the stakes for Zelensky, whose forces are struggling to contain Russian progress in Ukraine’s east while attempting to advance a recent offensive deeper into Russia itself.
The incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have seized a modest amount of territory in recent weeks, came as a surprise to many in the West and left some of Ukraine’s backers wondering how the offensive would affect the course of the war.
Zelensky cited the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin has appeared to prioritize his military’s push to seize the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk over seeking to repel Ukrainian forces in Kursk.
Putin “doesn’t care about Russian land and people. He just wants to grab as much land and as many of our cities as possible,” Zelensky said.
The talks at Ramstein follow discussions in Washington last week between U.S. officials and a high-level delegation Zelensky dispatched to plead for a looser policy on ATACMS. Zelensky’s remarks occurred as his government undergoes a massive shake-up, with many top ministers stepping down or shifting to new roles in what Zelensky described as an effort to inject new “energy” into Ukraine’s leadership ahead of a busy and consequential period in the war.
In addition to loosened restrictions on cross-border strikes, Ukraine is hoping to secure more air defense weapons and other systems ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November that could change Washington’s partnership with Kyiv.
The Ukrainian leader also called for prompt delivery of promised arms packages, saying air defense supplies were a matter of life and death as Russia launches an intensified wave of airstrikes on cities across Ukraine.
The escalation has stirred panic in Ukraine, where cities like Poltava and Lviv, normally considered safe from the worst attacks, have come under intense fire in recent days. More than 50 people were killed in a Russian strike on a military institute and nearby hospital in Poltava this week, and seven people, including four members of a single family, were killed in a strike on Lviv.
“The world has enough air defense systems to ensure that Russian terror does not have results,” Zelensky said.
Ukrainian leaders have pointed to those attacks as proof that Ukraine needs to be free to use Western weapons to destroy the airfields and bombers Russia uses to launch its attacks.
New military commitments are crucial ahead of what many expect to be a miserable winter in Ukraine, where much of the energy infrastructure is destroyed after repeated Russian attacks this spring and summer. Lengthy blackouts have become a daily occurrence in Kyiv as officials try to preserve what little energy generation the country has left but still give residents at least a few hours of power each day.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said Ukraine needs help defending such infrastructure and also needs to continue generating new manpower for its beleaguered army.
“Armored vehicles are another critical need, both to replace losses in experienced brigades and to help form new brigades,” Lee said, along with ammunition for artillery, mortars, air defense, antitank systems and antipersonnel mines.
Austin used the gathering to announce a new donation of $250 million worth of U.S. equipment for Ukraine, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles, Javelin antitank missiles, armored vehicles and patrol boats. It did not include other capabilities that Ukraine is seeking, including longer-range cruise missiles.
Zelensky is due later this month to visit the United States, where he is expected to unveil new plans for ending the war.
O’Grady reported from Kyiv.