Pentagon restricts Ukraine’s use of US missiles against Russia: report
By James Oliphant
Washington: The Pentagon has reportedly been quietly blocking Ukraine from using US-made long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to strike targets inside Russia, limiting Kyiv’s ability to employ these weapons in its defence against Moscow’s invasion.
The news came as US President Donald Trump has grown more frustrated publicly over the three-year-old war and his inability to secure a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine, and after he slammed a Biden-era policy that initially prevented Ukraine from launching full-scale attacks on Russia.
Ukrainian servicemen fire towards Russian positions at the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region last week.Credit: AP
After his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and a subsequent meeting with European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky failed to produce observable progress, Trump said on Friday (Saturday AEST) that he was again considering slapping Russia with economic sanctions or, alternatively, walking away from the peace process.
“I’m going to make a decision as to what we do and it’s going to be, it’s going to be a very important decision, and that’s whether or not it’s massive sanctions or massive tariffs or both, or we do nothing and say it’s your fight,” Trump said.
Trump had hoped to arrange a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelensky, but that has also proven difficult. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told NBC on Friday that there was no agenda in place for a sit-down with Zelensky.
“Putin is ready to meet with Zelensky when the agenda would be ready for a summit. And this agenda is not ready at all,” Lavrov told NBC, saying no meeting was planned for now.
As the White House sought to persuade Putin to join peace talks, an approval process put in place at the Pentagon had kept Ukraine from launching strikes deep into Russian territory, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials.
US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had final say over the use of the long-range weapons, the Journal said.
Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
Trump on Thursday (Friday AEST) complained about restrictions former US president Joe Biden initially put on the way Ukraine could use some of the arms supplied after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, such as preventing long-range artillery from being fired into Russia.
“It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country,” he posted on Truth Social last week. “It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defence, but is not allowed to play offence. There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.”
Trump said Biden would not let Ukraine “fight back” and suggested the strategy had failed. “How did that work out?” he wrote.
The Journal cited US officials as saying Trump’s social media post did not signal a policy change that would dispense with the Pentagon’s review mechanism or encourage Ukraine’s use of long-range Western systems. But a senior White House official told the newspaper that Trump could change his mind about facilitating expanded offensive operations against Russia.
Neither Ukraine’s presidential office nor the defence ministry immediately responded to Reuters’ request for a comment on the Journal’s report outside business hours. The White House and the Pentagon also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
World leaders including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron are backing plans to deliver more arms to Ukraine on the understanding that Trump will approve the weapon sales – as long as Europe pays for them.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack sparked a short-lived fire at the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant, damaging an auxiliary transformer, the plant’s press service reported on Sunday.
The press service said there were no injuries, but unit three of the plant was reduced to 50 per cent capacity. The destroyed drone also sparked a fire that had since been extinguished, it said, adding radiation levels at the site and in the surrounding area had not exceeded normal limits.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Reuters and staff writers
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