Ukraine’s military says it used high-precision U.S. glide bombs to strike Russia’s Kursk region, and that is has recaptured some territory in the eastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv that has been under a Russian offensive since spring.
Ukraine’s Air Force Commander Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleschuk issued a video Thursday night purporting to show a Russian platoon base being hit in Kursk, where Ukrainian forces launched a surprise cross-border incursion on Aug. 6. He said the attack with GBU-39 bombs, which were supplied by the United States, resulted in Russian casualties and the destruction of equipment.
Does this represent a relaxing of restrictions on the usage of US supplied arms on Russian soil or was this always considered ok?
There seems to have been some policy miscommunication between political and military parties of both nations.
The US has maintained that the restrictions have been to not allow offensive use, or specific long range missiles for targeting well inside Russian territory.
Ukraine understood this to mean using them to fend off an attack, and only targets within a specific distance from the border.
In the past few months it seems that much of this has been clarified, and Ukraine is now using US munitions for a proper US “preemptive defensive action inside enemy territory”, because a Russian base in Russia is full of Russian soldiers who will be ordered to attack, therefore an attack is defensive.
If it was an actual miscommunication or a pivot is unclear, but the US language seems to have not changed, and a policy that acknowledges that almost anything Ukraine does in this war is inherently defensive is much more reasonable.
I believe it was a recent (as of a month or so ago?) relaxation.
