WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden’s administration will allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, three sources familiar with the matter said, in a significant change to Washington’s policy in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, the sources said, without revealing details due to operational security concerns.

The move by the United States two months before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20 follows months of requests by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to allow Ukraine’s military to use U.S. weapons to hit Russian military targets far from its border.

The change follows Russia’s deployment of North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces, a development that has caused alarm in Washington and Kyiv.

The first deep strikes are likely to be carried out using ATACMS rockets, which have a range of up to 190 miles (306 km), according to the sources.

  • badelf@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 days ago

    It’s only for four months. Putin doesn’t mind how many Russians will die until Trump gets in and tells Ukraine to surrender his buddy.

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      2 days ago

      What is the point of drafted Ukrainians dying for the next four months? You already accept Ukraine will inevitably surrender.

    • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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      3 days ago

      If Putin doesn’t care how many Ukrainians die, why is he even averse to hitting their rail lines and electrical infrastructure? They clearly save these attacks for retaliation when negotiations fall through yet again and the bellicose US statements get out of hand yet again.

      The whole mystification of Iran and Russia’s clear strategy of “fuck off so we can stabilize and develop” that inevitably results in risks to our own stability is too funny. Western orientalism is strong in 2024 as it was in 2001.

      Russia doesn’t benefit from destabilized hostile states on its border. What about that is so hard for liberals to understand?

      • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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        3 days ago

        Just wanna point out that in this initial reply to the comment tree, you did the exact same thing I just called you out on:
        Misrepresenting (or to not assume malice, misREADING) another comment to then spin your entire narrative around that error.
        They said:

        Putin doesn’t mind how many Russians will die

        You base your retort on:

        If Putin doesn’t care how many Ukrainians die

        “this already shows you are terrible at reading. How am I supposed to expect you to treat anything else I show you seriously when you cannot even read your own material?”

        • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          You cannot be serious, this is a distinction without a difference. I can’t believe you’ve managed to find a way to fence sit between your own position and mine. Yes, to add to your inability to read, you seemingly intend to exhaust my energy by arguing about meaningless nonsense. You have the attitude of someone who does not value their time.

      • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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        3 days ago

        Ah so putin is the good guy whos checks notes liberating the ukraine and totally reasonable in his target choices?

        • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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          3 days ago

          Why exactly are you so convinced Russian leadership wants to massacre Ukraine and have a wasteland on the border? Ukraine was a vital trading partner for Russia prior to the western coup. Why do you think that the US and its allies fund a proxy war on Ukrainian territory? Out of the goodness of their hearts? They have been privatizing state assets in Ukraine, speculating on them, taking advantage of the spike in European requirement for US natural gas to replace Russia, and making huge military industrial purchases to replace what Russia destroys.

          I’m sure Russia will settle for a slowly steamrolled Ukraine as a second option if the terror attacks on Russian office buildings etcetera continue, they might not even stop at western Ukraine, it could go on for years. They have been willing at many points to freeze the conflict so that they can go on making some money with Ukraine. Like I said it took them ten years to come to the aid of Donbas while civilians were being bombed there (Ukrainian leadership openly bragged about making the eastern Ukrainians’ children stay in bomb shelters rather than school). The west chose the drawn out destruction of cities, the destruction of a dam for no good reason.

          • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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            3 days ago

            surely you have a lot of irrefutable sources for your claims.
            It’s crazy how many people here are touting the widely disclaimed coup or genocide.
            Like surely there’s a lot of publicly accessible, independent data on all of that, right?
            Surely there’s a very good reason why Crimea was invaded in a cloak-and-dagger operation by unmarked soldiers while russia officially demented any accusations it’s their troops? Surely.

            • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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              3 days ago

              It’s 2024 and you are deepthroating the White House narrative. You trust the people who invaded Iraq because they said Al-Qaeda was there to tell you who “the bad guy” is.

              I will show you plenty of sources, including actual video of Ukrainian forces torturing and killing civilians that has been verified independently. But first I want a source for your claim that Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilians. I will show you how easy it is to verify that your sources are not independent, funded by western finance capital, and undermined by statements from think tanks which cater to higher brow audiences on “your side” aka the ruling class that knows you don’t know how to research and most of their population is functionally illiterate.

              I am well aware of what the headlines say. You don’t know your head from your ass without the Associated Press or the BBC weighing in on the subject.

              • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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                3 days ago

                White House narrative

                Muricacentric much?

                But first I want a source for your claim that Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilians.

                Strawman, letsgooo.
                Besides your random made up arguments, here are some numbers on civilian casualties:
                https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293492/ukraine-war-casualties/

                There’s of course a bunch of civilian massacres still under active investigation, plus a lot of varying numbers between UA officials and independent reports. Mostly it’s just the precise numbers that are unclear, not the act itself. See:

                https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/f/a/515868.pdf https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/06/ukraine-deadly-mariupol-theatre-strike-a-clear-war-crime-by-russian-forces-new-investigation/ https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1107854331/russian-missile-strike-shopping-mall-kremenchuk

                But of course these are all western propaganda, please enlighten me with your credible sources full of irrefutable proof that i’m entirely consumed by fake news.

                • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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                  3 days ago

                  It’s not a strawman you just again said that “of course” there’s a bunch of civilian massacres under investigation. You literally just made the same argument you said was a strawman a sentence ago. Show your sources so we can expose your total intellectual dependence on spoon feeding from the media of the US and its allies.

                  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified a total of 35,160 civilian casualties during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as of July 31, 2024. Of them, 23,640 people were reported to have been injured. However, OHCHR specified that the real numbers could be higher.

                  I already know of this. First of all this statistic is of the total reports of civilian deaths on both sides in the war, this already shows you are terrible at reading. How am I supposed to expect you to treat anything else I show you seriously when you cannot even read your own material? You can’t chalk up every single civilian death reported in the conflict to Russia, that is completely idiotic.

                  Second, they are taking Ukrainian government reports at face value. Prior to the war in Ukraine The Guardian and BBC and NYT all commented on how corrupt the Ukrainian state is, among the worst in the world.

                  Third, the UN human rights commission is headed by an EU guy, and is overall an institution which is controlled by the US and never intervenes in US imperialism. The US openly mocks UN officials it has problems with, like with the Iraq war, and uses its clout to prevent Iranian, Russian and Venezuelan politicians from accessing the UN without being arrested. The UN’s total abdication of responsibility as an international human rights institution and subservient reliance on the US and its allies has been put on full display by a year of genocide in Gaza.

                  https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/03/17/human-rights-ngo-hrw-amnesty-us-government/ Yes Amnesty has close ties to the White House. The global financial system, telecommunications, journalist and academia, it’s all very centralized with America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and to some extent wealth petromonarchies’ main cities Riyadh, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi

                  • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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                    3 days ago

                    Righty, we’re playign a game of semantics not content. Got it.
                    I wrote

                    totally reasonable in his target choices?

                    Any further specific claims came from you.

                    Further:

                    There’s of course a bunch of civilian massacres still under active investigation, plus a lot of varying numbers between UA officials and independent reports.

                    me acknowledging the unclear nature of war-time reports.
                    Again, the rest is you projecting a slightly different argument onto my words to give yourself an easier time filing me away as a “propaganda victim” or whatever.

                    First of all this statistic is of the total reports of civilian deaths on both sides in the war, this already shows you are terrible at reading

                    If I were to argue like you do, I’d now go off about how you claim ALL civilian casualties died at Ukrainian hands.
                    I don’t do that though, instead I’d ask you to provide the detailed breakdown you seem to have you hands on.

                    You seem to also have missed this:

                    The figures exclude Crimea and Sevastopol due to the lack of corroborating information.

                    Meaning, your alleged genocide is not in this dataset.

                    And lastly, you’re still not providing literally anything of substance yourself. You only tactic is discredit any potential source and ignore the ones you don’t wanna engage with in advance so you can later claim “no that one doesn’t count, I already said it’s propaganda” while the only thing you’re currently leaning on is an opinion piece from a heavily biased borderline conspiracy rag.

                    Either you engage with what I’m writing and work with the people you’re talking to, or you keep arguing in bad faith. If you pick the latter, feel free, go off king, i’m not interested.

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        3 days ago

        Ukraine has no ability to produce long range missiles whatsoever. These are all American missiles operated by American personnel. The Ukrainians can’t even launch them, never mind build them. And since it takes American personnel to launch them, it would mean the US is literally directly attacking Russia, at which point this in no way can be considered a “proxy” or “cold” war anymore, but a hot war between the two largest nuclear powers.

          • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            The best source you have for these long range missiles is some Mickey Mouse Ukrainian propaganda outlet? Most of Ukraine’s industrial capacity was in eastern Ukraine, which western Ukraine has lost access to. This sounds like some Ghost of Kyiv-level Wunderwaffe.

            Also it has never been considered a proxy war. It’s literal Russian propaganda punch line, my dude. Find better sources than RT

            It has always been considered a proxy war, to weaken and ideally regime change or even Balkanize Russia[1][2]. The US government and corporate media aren’t going to tell you that, though[1]. Russia calling it a proxy war is not proof that it is not one. Find better sources yourself.

            • hitwright@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              Did the CIA used mind control for the Russians to invade? Hard to see how the US could have started the proxy war.