The United States signaled that it may allow Ukraine to fire missiles more deeply into Russia to destroy weapons that Moscow has deployed to launch airstrikes throughout Ukraine.
“We’ll adapt as necessary, including about the means that are at Ukraine’s disposal to effectively defend against the Russian aggression,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at a news conference in Warsaw.
He said the U.S. and its allies “will always” take Ukraine’s battlefield needs into account.
Blinken emphatically told reporters he believes Ukraine can win the war.
“We’re determined to see Ukraine win this war,” Blinken said. “Time and again we’ve seen Ukraine success against the odds.”
The top U.S. diplomat said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “entire purpose was to erase Ukraine from the map, to eliminate it as a sovereign country. He has failed.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday that Moscow was taking advantage of Kyiv’s Western allies’ hesitation over allowing Ukraine to strike more deeply into Russian territory.
“The delay in this process leads to Russia moving these military targets deeper into Russia,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine urges the US, and Britain to allow Western weapons to be used on Russian targets
Blinken spoke Thursday alongside Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, a day after he and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy met with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv on the state of the war and what they consider to be their immediate needs.
Blinken and Lammy pledged to bring the Ukrainian requests for wider missile usage to their leaders.
