Biden Draws New Line
Biden Draws New Line
Moscow Decries US Move, Biden Allowed Ukraine to strike inside Russia, and 'We are the world power': Biden offers defense of US primacy.
Moscow Decries US Move
By Pjotr Sauer (The Guardian)
The Kremlin has said Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to use US-supplied weapons against targets in Russia demonstrates Washington’s deep involvement in the conflict, as some of Vladimir Putin’s allies increased their nuclear threats against the west.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Friday that Moscow was already aware of attempts by Ukraine to strike targets on Russian territory with weapons provided by the US.
Biden’s decision on Thursday to allow Kyiv to use US weapons for counter-fire purposes inside Russia near the border with the Kharkiv region marked an important shift, after warnings from Moscow that the move could trigger a global conflict.
The approval came after days of growing pressure on Biden from western allies and the Ukrainian president, Volodomyr Zelenskiy, who argued that the delay in the use of western weapons had cost lives.
“I think it is absolutely illogical to have [western] weapons and see the murderers, terrorists, who are killing us from the Russian side. I think sometimes they are just laughing at this situation,” Zelenskiy told the Guardian in an interview published on Friday.
The German government announced on Friday that it would also give Ukraine permission to use weapons it supplied against military targets in Russian territory bordering the Kharkiv region to defend itself against Moscow’s attacks.
During a visit to Uzbekistan earlier this week, Putin warned against western countries allowing Ukraine to use their weapons to strike Russia. “This constant escalation can lead to serious consequences,” the Russian president said on Tuesday, without giving further detail.
Putin also issued a thinly veiled threat against Nato’s smaller European members, saying they “should be aware that they are playing with fire” because they had small land areas and very dense populations.
In the lead-up to Biden’s decision on Thursday, other western allies including the UK, France and the Netherlands, and the Nato secretary general, also said Ukraine should be able to use western weapons against military targets in Russia.
Dmitry Medvedev, the hawkish former Russian president and current deputy chair of the country’s security council, called Biden’s decision a “serious escalation of the conflict”.
“Russia regards all long-range weapons used by Ukraine as already being directly controlled by servicemen from Nato countries. This is no military assistance, this is participation in a war against us,” he said, adding that Russia would destroy any western weaponry used to attack it “both in Ukraine and in the territory of other countries”.
Medvedev said it would be a “crucial mistake” on the part of the west to believe that Russia was not ready to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine. He also spoke of the potential to strike unnamed hostile countries with strategic nuclear weapons. “This is, alas, neither intimidation nor bluffing,” he said.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, dismissed warnings by Moscow that the decision to allow Ukraine to use western weapons to strike inside Russian territory might lead to an escalation.
“This is nothing new. It has ... been the case for a long time that every time Nato allies are providing support to Ukraine, President Putin is trying to threaten us to not do that,” Stoltenberg told reporters on Friday on the sidelines of a Nato foreign ministers’ meeting in Prague. “And an escalation – well, Russia has escalated by invading another country.”
Western countries’ approval for the use of their weapons comes amid reports that France is planning to send military trainers to Ukraine, making it the first to publicly deploy troops on the ground. The country’s president, Emmanuel Macron, could announce the move next week during a visit by Zelenskiy, who will attend a ceremony in Normandy to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day.
Putin has said the French move would escalate the situation toward a global conflict, and some senior officials in Moscow have said French trainers would become legitimate targets for Russian troops.
In the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Putin frequently invoked Moscow’s nuclear arsenal, pledging to use all means necessary to defend his country. He later seemed to moderate his rhetoric, reportedly after Chinese officials persuaded him to abandon his nuclear threats, but he has recently returned to them.
Russian forces started military drills near Ukraine last week that simulated the use of tactical nuclear weapons, in a move that Moscow said was a warning to the west not to escalate tensions further.
Since the start of the war, Washington has voiced fears of provoking Putin into a nuclear response and drawing the US and Nato into direct conflict with Moscow.
It has reportedly expressed anger over two Ukrainian drone strikes in the last week against Russian radar stations that provide warning of nuclear launches. At least one of the strikes in the south-eastern Krasnodar region appeared to have caused some damage, according to images circulating on social media.
“They are sensitive locations because Russia could perceive that its strategic deterrent capabilities are being targeted, which could undermine Russia’s ability to maintain nuclear deterrence against the United States,” an unnamed US official told the Washington Post.
Biden Allowed Ukraine to strike inside Russia
By Matt Berg and Eric Bazail-EIimil (POLITICO)
Ukraine is now allowed to use some U.S.-provided weapons to strike military targets in Russian territory. The Biden administration has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike across the border from Kharkiv — and only that area — using U.S.-provided weapons. That’s according to two U.S. officials and two other people familiar with the move who spoke to our own ERIN BANCO, ALEX WARD and LARA SELIGMAN today.
It’s a major reversal that will help Ukraine to better defend its second-largest city, following hints from top Biden aides that the U.S. would consider the move this week.
“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” one of the U.S. officials confirmed, adding that the policy of allowing long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.”
In recent days, U.S. officials repeatedly told the public that there was no shift policy, but signaled that it was possible. Ukrainian officials, European allies and U.S. lawmakers from both parties have been calling on Biden to allow such strikes across the border for weeks — and the White House listened.
Ukraine asked the U.S. to make this policy change only after Russia’s offensive on Kharkiv began this month, the official added. In the last few days, the U.S. made the decision to allow Ukraine “flexibility” to defend itself from attacks on the border near Kharkiv, the second U.S. official said.
In effect, Ukraine can now use American-provided weapons, such as rockets and rocket launchers, to shoot down launched Russian missiles heading toward Kharkiv, at troops massing just over the Russian border near the city, or Russian bombers launching bombs toward Ukrainian territory. But the official said Ukraine cannot use those weapons to hit civilian infrastructure or launch long-range missiles, such as the Army Tactical Missile System, to hit military targets deep inside Russia.
It’s a stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the U.S. in the fight. But worsening conditions for Ukraine on the battlefield — namely Russia’s advances and improved position in Kharkiv — led the president to change his mind. Kyiv has spent the last several days drawing up plans to use the weapons to hit the Russian targets, working to keep the news quiet until it achieved its goals.
In early May, a senior U.S. military official told lawmakers there would be “military value” in easing restrictions on Ukraine’s use of U.S. weapons inside Russian territory, two attendees of the meeting also told Lara, CONNOR O’BRIEN and Alex today.
'We are the world power': Biden offers defense of US primacy
By Blaise Malley (Responsible Statecraft)
In late April, former President Donald Trump gave a wide-ranging interview to TIME magazine, which had a significant focus on foreign policy issues, particularly the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The resulting transcript revealed that a second-Trump term would be just as murky foreign policy-wise, as the former president used much of his time contradicting himself, criticizing his successor, and offering few details about how he would approach international issues if elected again.
On Tuesday, it was President Joe Biden’s turn to get the same treatment. The outcome was not all that different.
Biden gave a long interview to TIME ‘s Washington bureau chief Massimo Calabresi and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs, which centered almost exclusively on the president’s foreign policy agenda, looking both back at his first term in office and forward at a possible second.
Biden aggressively defended his record, particularly when it came to his leadership in responding to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Like Trump, Biden was sure to emphasize differences with his opponent, especially in terms of maintaining American global leadership and supporting allies.
“We are the world power,” he said in response to the first question about whether the U.S. could still play the same global role it did during World War II and the Cold War.
Israel and Gaza
The president was coy about how he would react to Israel’s invasion of Rafah, suggesting that revealing his assessment of whether Israel had crossed his “red line” would imperil ongoing discussions with Tel Aviv.
“I'm not going to speak to that now, (...) I'm in the process of talking with the Israelis right now.” he said. “If I tell you, you’ll write it. It’s not time for you to write it.”
Biden did offer some mild criticism of Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said that Israel’s war strategy risked repeating American mistakes following 9/11, and could lead to an “endless war;” and that there was “every reason for people to draw” the conclusion that Netanyahu was determined to keep the war going for domestic political purposes. The president also said that his “biggest disagreement” with his Israeli counterpart is that Netanyahu does not share his belief that “there needs to be a two-state solution.”
Biden did not offer any ideas of how he plans to square that circle, given his acknowledgement that the Israeli government is not interested in Palestinian statehood. The “roadmap to an enduring ceasefire” that the White House released last week notably had no mention of a path to Palestinian statehood.
Ultimately, however, Biden laid blame for both the start of the war and the inability to end it at the feet of Hamas. When asked whether Israel had violated international law, the president pivoted to discussing atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. And when asked whether the hold-up to reaching a ceasefire deal was due to Hamas, Israel or both, Biden was quick to blame the former, though his reasoning was unclear.
“Hamas could end this tomorrow,” he said, emphasizing that Netanyahu was “prepared to do about anything to get the hostages back.” In fact, the Israeli government has said that the war will not end until “the destruction of Hamas military and governing capabilities” was complete, and Israeli officials have disputed Biden’s description of the ceasefire proposal.
Biden was also inconclusive about whether Israel had been violating international law, saying that the evidence of whether the IDF had committed war crimes was “uncertain,” and that, although they had taken actions that were “inappropriate” he did not believe that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war.
Prominent NGOs like Human Rights Watch and Oxfam have determined that Israeli assurances that they had not violated international law were “not credible” and had committed a series of violations of customary international humanitarian law. Members of Congress called on Biden to suspend arms transfers to Israel because of its blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza. One State Department official recently resigned because she said the department’s report saying that Israel had not broken the law was “patently false.”
If the U.S. did deem that Israel was violating international laws — as some administration officials have hinted — Washington would be required by law to cut off arms supplies, a step that Biden and his team have been wholly unwilling to take.
Ukraine, NATO, and Russia
Biden was steadfast in arguing that his administration’s approach to the war in Ukraine had been a success, and did not seem interested in facing any criticism about the current state of the war or a strategy to conclude it. He rejected the premise of a question about the dire battlefield situation and whether, at this point, reaching a peace agreement with Russia was the best way out of the war.
“I don't know why you skip over all that’s happened in the meantime [between Russia’s invasion and today],” Biden said. “The Russian military has been decimated. You don’t write about that. It’s been freaking decimated.”
He similarly dismissed questions about escalation and the possibility of a future NATO-Russia war, saying “we're on a slippery slope for war if we don't do something about Ukraine.”
Biden did not offer any specifics on what an end to the war would look like or what Washington’s plan to get there is, saying only his conception of peace is “making sure Russia never, never, never, never occupies Ukraine. That's what peace looks like.”
However, he added that an end to the war "doesn't mean NATO, they are part of NATO. It means we have a relationship with them like we do with other countries."
"I am not prepared to support the NATOization of Ukraine," Biden elaborated. "I spent a month in Ukraine when I was a Senator and Vice President. There was significant corruption."
The president's views on the war seem to be informed by a belief that Russian President Vladimir Putin is motivated by a desire to make Ukraine a part of Russia and to expand Moscow’s influence over the continent
“He says this is part of reestablishing the Soviet Union,” Biden said, referring to a speech Putin gave in 2022. “That's what this is all about. It wasn't just about taking part of—He wanted, he wanted to go back to the, to the days when there was NATO and there was that other outfit that Poland, everybody belonged to. So that’s what it was about.”
Biden also talked up his success in strengthening NATO, emphasizing that two new countries had joined the alliance since his presidency started, and that Europe collectively had spent more money to aid Ukraine than had the U.S. As the TIME fact check showed, while Europe has committed to provide more money to Ukraine in the long-term, the continent has so far spent only $107 billion to Kyiv, compared to $175 billion from the U.S.
China and Taiwan
Biden said he is “not ruling out using military force” in the case of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, but added that “[he’s] made clear to Xi Jinping that we agree with—we signed on to previous presidents going way back—to the policy of, that, it is we are not seeking independence for Taiwan.”
Biden’s apparent endorsement of strategic ambiguity , was a slight divergence from an earlier series of claims that Washington would come to Taiwan’s defense if Beijing ever invaded.
Elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific, the president celebrated Japan’s defense spending increase, the formation of the Quad, and other U.S. military investments in the region.
“We are much stronger in the Pacific than we ever were before. China, by the way, China is very concerned about it,” he said. “[Xi Jinping] wanted to know why I was doing all these things. I said the simple reason I’m doing those things: to make sure that you don’t, that you aren’t able to change the status quo any.”
In his interview, Biden offered a straightforward defense of American primacy and global leadership, and painted it as the primary difference between himself and Trump. While he was light on the details, it ultimately appeared as if there would be little difference between a first and second Biden term when it comes to U.S. foreign policy.