Ukraine uses Kursk success to press Biden on lifting weapons restrictions

Ukraine's invasion of Russia has flipped the gloomy narrative on the war, and Kyiv is using its battlefield success to launch a new pressure campaign on the U.S. to lift the last restrictions on the use of long-range weapons inside Russia.

But at least for now, the White House still isn’t ready to do it.

Ukrainian officials have been huddling with members of Congress, making public statements and meeting with top U.S. officials to get President Joe Biden to change his mind. Armed with the surprising results of the Kursk offensive, Kyiv is amping up the pressure in the run-up to the U.S. elections and the uncertain future of American aid in 2025 and beyond.

Specifically, they’re pressing Biden and his top advisers to stop worrying about Russian escalation and allow Kyiv to fight the war on its own terms.

“The whole naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled these days somewhere near Sudzha,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week, referring to a Russian town taken by Ukrainian forces.

While Biden has relented on previous concerns over long-range missiles, tanks, and F-16 fighter planes, the administration’s restrictions on when and where to use U.S.-donated longer-range precision missiles has created immense frustration in Kyiv and among some backers in Washington and Europe.

And while the Biden team is considering sending additional missiles , as POLITICO first reported, senior officials in the White House and the Pentagon continue to shoot down any suggestion that the administration is thinking about changing its policy when it comes to allowing Ukraine to use American weapons outside of very specific instances inside Russia near the border. They maintain Ukraine has the authorities it needs to win.

Some inside the top echelons of the Biden national security apparatus believe Kyiv may be launching the public campaign in order to hedge against any potential significant loss of ground in Ukraine in the coming months, according to one person familiar with internal Washington-Kyiv conversations.

Ukrainians say they need a freer hand, and are still optimistic they can get there.

“There’s some indication now that Biden might want to do something big on Ukraine — maybe lifting some of the restrictions — before the election now that he’s not running,” one senior Ukrainian adviser said. “There’s no guarantee, but we’re hearing that he’s thinking about it.”

For more than two years, Biden, has resisted allowing Kyiv free use of American weapons during offensive campaigns inside Russia — in fear of escalating tensions with Moscow. If he does change his mind, it would significantly alter the course of the war, giving Kyiv the freedom it says it needs to win.

POLITICO spoke to eight officials in the U.S., Ukraine and other parts of Europe who were familiar with internal deliberations over the use of long-range weapons. All were all granted anonymity to speak freely about the internal disagreement.

Part of the deliberations involve allowing British-made Storm Shadow missiles already in the Ukrainian arsenal to hit Russian airfields and supply depots inside Russia. Since the missiles contain U.S. components, the Biden administration would have to agree to their use. The British government has yet to formally make the request, though it is conducting an internal review and the Biden administration is aware of the issue according to officials on both sides of the Atlantic.

One administration official said that using the Storm Shadow or Army Tactical Missile Systems — long-range missiles that Ukrainians have for months wanted to use to strike inside Russia — might not be as effective as advertised. The Ukrainian military has a limited supply of the missiles and those they do have may not be able to reach critical Russian targets, which have already been moved out of their range.

Most significantly, “90 percent of the planes that launch glide bombs” from Russian airspace at Ukrainian civilian infrastructure have already moved out of range of those missiles, a senior administration official said.

The U.S. already allows the use of its long-range missiles inside Russia, but only for defense — as counter-battery fire to hit Russian missile-launch sites just over the border firing into Ukraine.

“Our policy does allow for Ukraine to conduct counter fires to defend itself from Russian attacks coming over that border region — and that border region does include Kursk — and it does include Sumi,” inside Russia, Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh told reporters Thursday. “And so, they are defending themselves from Russian attacks within that region.”

The Ukrainians fighting inside Russia are already using the U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System to hit bridges, supply depots and Russian units, using precision munitions with U.S. blessing.

Some prominent Democratic lawmakers said they’re open to the U.S. allowing Ukraine more leeway in using American arms.

Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) said he supports sending more long-range weapons to Kyiv, including giving Ukrainians “more flexibility on targeting and the use of those weapons.”

Crow said the war has changed from its early days and U.S. and allied policy needs to keep up with those changes.

“The risk of Ukraine losing is catastrophic” for the world order, so the U.S. has to work to “both manage the risk of escalation … but also lean in in a way that maybe we wouldn't have in the first year of this conflict.”

Ukrainians’ use of high-end U.S. weaponry shows that they’ve “proven to be a responsible partner, and they've proven to know how to use this stuff and to use it well. It's time that we are very clear in that commitment that we're going to help Ukraine win this.”

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who chairs the panel that controls much of the Pentagon budget, likened the hesitancy of the administration to approve missile strikes deeper into Russian territory to its previous objections to providing Ukraine long-range munitions and F-16 fighters, among other debates. The Biden team eventually reversed course and sent those weapons.

Calvert criticized the administration for blocking the wider use of U.S.-made long-range systems, arguing holding back the Ukrainians will prolong the war.

"Obviously in Kursk, they would like to have use of a long-range fire, specifically ATACMS. And there's some fear and trepidation on part of the administration," Calvert said in an interview. "At some point, the war needs to end, and unless the Ukrainians can defend their territory by attacking the supply chain that's moving the Russian military operations, it's going to be difficult to bring them to the table.

"This advance that they had into Russia is encouraging, but it's going to be hard to sustain without them being able to utilize certain kinds of weapons systems," he added. "So I hope they're thinking that out a little bit."

The Ukrainians have long tried to get the White House to ramp up its support by saying it will help Biden’s legacy, arguing the administration will be remembered as either having helped Ukraine win or not doing enough by keeping the restrictions in place.

“It’s about legacy,” the adviser said. “What does the Biden administration want their legacy to be on Ukraine? They have a chance to make a change. And we’re advocating they make that change now.”

A second Ukrainian adviser also pointed to the election and uncertainty over what policies either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris might have concerning the use of U.S. weapons in Russia, and continued funding for Ukraine in 2025 and beyond.

That argument has so far failed to move the president and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The Pentagon remains in lockstep with the White House’s thinking.

At the NATO Summit in Washington in July, Ukrainian officials, including Andriy Yermak, a senior adviser to Zelenskyy, asked the White House to consider lifting the ban.

In July and August, delegations of Ukrainian parliamentarians met on Capitol Hill with lawmakers, urging them to talk to the White House to urge the president to change his mind.

At the beginning of August, a coalition of bipartisan senators organized a meeting with Sullivan. Sullivan has at various times held meetings with the senators to discuss Ukraine. But during this encounter, the delegation had one, unified message: The administration needs to change its stance now before it is too late, according to a person who was briefed on the meeting.

Their argument was similar to one they and many others, including Ukrainians, have made before. The U.S. should lift all restrictions, they say, because if it doesn’t and Ukraine loses, the administration will be known as the one that didn’t do enough when it could.

That framing has at times angered senior officials in the White House who insist Washington has done more than any other country to help support Kyiv and that it shouldn’t have to risk its own national security for Kyiv. Officials in certain corners of the administration, particularly inside the White House, have told the Ukrainians that the U.S. will eventually want to reset relations with Moscow and lifting the restrictions could upend those efforts.

Connor O’Brien and Jonathan Lemire contributed to this report.