Pentagon rebuffs Zelensky’s latest weapons plea

The Ukrainian leader has once again demanded unrestricted use of US-supplied missiles

Washington’s policy on Kiev’s use of American weapons against Russia remains unchanged, the US Department of Defense has said.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has renewed his demands that all restrictions on Western hardware be lifted. The limitations were put in place to allow the US and its allies to claim they were not directly involved in the conflict, despite sending Kiev billions of dollars worth of arms, ammunition, equipment, and cash.

“Our policy has not changed,” Pentagon spokesman Major-General Patrick Ryder said on Tuesday, explaining that Ukraine is allowed to use US-supplied weapons to defend from cross-border attacks but not for “deep strikes” into Russian territory.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday that there were “no changes” to the policy with regard to the restrictions.

The US has already relaxed its policy from the initial set of restrictions, which only allowed Kiev to strike Russian territory Ukraine claimed as its own – from Crimea to Zaporozhye, Kherson, and the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

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Zelensky claimed these restrictions hampered his military in countering the Russian operation north of Kharkov in May and demanded that they be lifted entirely. Washington responded by allowing “counter fires” against Russian forces across the border. In practice, Ukrainian forces have used their US-provided HIMARS rocket launchers to strike towns, bridges and roads instead.

“There should be no restrictions on the range of weapons for Ukraine,” Zelensky said on Monday. “Defenders of life should face no restrictions on weapons.”

His chief of staff Andrey Yermak and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov are scheduled to visit Washington later this week and present a list of targets Kiev wishes to strike, Politico reported on Monday, citing anonymous sources. Yermak was behind the initial push to relax the restrictions in May.

China, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia are “worried that the West will continue to relax the conditions for using supplied weapons to attack Russia’s homeland,” Beijing’s special representative for Eurasian affairs, Li Hui, said on Tuesday.

The current US government drew the line on deep strikes into Russia after one of its ATACMS rockets armed with a cluster warhead struck a Crimean beach in early June. Moscow blamed Washington for the carnage and suggested it might arm “states and entities” around the world hostile to the US in response.