US President Joe Biden has agreed to provide Ukraine with advanced missile systems that can accurately hit Russian targets at long range as part of a $700 million weapons package expected to be made public on Wednesday.
Senior administration officials have said the United States will provide Ukraine with mobile missile launchers that can accurately hit targets up to 80km away, after Ukraine gave “assurances” it would not use the missiles to hit targets inside Russia.
In a New York Times op-ed on Tuesday, Biden said the Russian invasion of Ukraine would be ended diplomatically, but that the United States must provide significant amounts of arms and ammunition to solidify Ukraine’s place at the negotiating table.
“That is why I decided to provide the Ukrainians with more advanced missile systems and ammunition that would allow them to hit key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine with greater accuracy,” Biden wrote.
Officials said the package also included ammunition, radar and other Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as anti-tank weapons.
Ukrainian officials are asking allies to have long-range missile systems capable of launching missiles hundreds of kilometers away, hoping to turn the tide of the three-month war.
“We will not send missile systems to Ukraine that will strike Russian territory,” Biden told reporters on Tuesday.
He did not rule out the provision of any particular weapon system, but appears to have laid down conditions for its use. Biden wants to help Ukraine defend itself, but is opposed to providing weapons that Ukraine can use to attack Russia.
Thousands of people have been killed in Ukraine and millions more have been displaced since the start of what Russia calls a military operation to rid its neighbor of “Nazis” on February 24th. Ukraine and its Western allies are calling it a baseless pretext for starting a war to seize territory.
The West is increasingly willing to provide Ukraine with longer-range weapons, including the M777 howitzer, while its forces are fighting the Russians with more success than intelligence officials expected.
On Saturday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said that Ukraine began to receive Harpoon anti-ship missiles from Denmark and self-propelled howitzers from the United States.