Austin Tells Zelensky: Long-Range Strikes in Russia Won’t Be A Game Changer

In the latest $250 million weapons package for Ukraine approved and released by the Biden administration, noticeably absent were the longer range missiles which Zelensky has long been pleading for.

The package did include the typical HIMARS ammunition, air defenses, artillery rounds, and even some Stinger missiles, among other items, and was pulled through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which draws from American military stockpiles. It is part of the $61 billion for Ukraine (out of the total $95 billion foreign military aid bill) singed into law by President Biden last April.

Image: Office of the Secretary of Defense Public Affairs

On the same day the $250 million weapons package was released (Friday), Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin offered some rare pushed back against Kiev’s desperate requests to use US and Western weaponry to launch long-range strikes deep inside Russian territory.

Austin while at Ramstein airbase in Germany, where he met with officials representing states backing Ukraine, was asked if the US would allow long-range strikes on Russia. He responded by saying no one capability would be a game changer

“I don’t believe that one specific capability is going to be decisive,” he argued. “Our approach to integrating things and to making sure that they have the right skill sets to employ those capabilities and those capabilities are linked to specific objectives.”

“I think Ukraine has a pretty significant capability of its own to address targets that are well beyond the range of ATACMS or even Storm Shadow for that matter,” Austin continued, while also explaining that the Russian army has of late pulled back much of its military assets, leaving them out of range of the ATACMS systems, which can strike at a distance of about 190 miles.

“There are a lot of targets in Russia, a big country, obviously. And there’s a lot of capability that Ukraine has in terms of UAVs and other things to address those targets,” the US defense chief explained.

Still, at the Ramstein base meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Zelensky made the appeal: 

“We need to have this long-range capability, not only on the divided territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace,” the Ukrainian leader said.

“We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need: peace or Putin.“

But the reality is that despite the Kursk incursion which has precisely sought to make ordinary Russians ‘think twice’ – nothing strategically has changed in the battlefield along the front lines in Donetsk. Weekend headlines were filled with accounts of Russian forces’ ongoing rapid advance in the east.

We will present a detailed plan for victory in the war to Biden, Trump and Harris, – Zelensky.

“We are very much looking forward to the results of the conversation with US Defense Minister Austin”, he added. pic.twitter.com/YwDOZXQFL0

— The Russian Invasion of Ukraine (@wogoa1) September 8, 2024

It appears that for now, no matter how loudly Kiev lobbies Washington, the consensus is that hitting deeper inside Russia has little or no upside and is full of downside, specifically of drawing NATO and Russia into a direct shooting war.