Blinken visits Kyiv as U.S., Ukraine debate arms restrictions

KYIV – The top U.S. diplomat made a rare wartime visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, offering a sympathetic ear to its leaders as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mounted a push to win permission to use long-range U.S. missile systems to strike deep into Russia, despite being rejected last week by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

Kyiv’s attempt to sway the Biden administration came as Ukraine has faced heavy bombardment from Russia in recent days – especially on its power sector – a situation that Blinken warned ahead of the visit could soon get worse after the United States accused Iran of shipping short-range ballistic missiles to Russia earlier this month.

The Ukrainian effort is a continuation of a dynamic that has marked relations between Kyiv and Washington since the full-scale Russian invasion two and a half years ago. Ukraine has pushed for more and better weaponry, while Washington has resisted, fearing escalation with Russia, only to relent later. Zelenskyy promised Wednesday to offer a “victory plan” to President Joe Biden later this month, but offered few details.

With Biden’s time in office waning, pressure is increasing both on the Ukrainians and the White House to lock in decisions about the future of the conflict now, ahead of any possible policy shift should former president Donald Trump regain the White House. Trump, asked twice at the presidential debate on Tuesday whether he wanted Kyiv to win the war, deflected and said that “I want the war to stop.” Vice President Kamala Harris said she would continue current U.S. policy and told Trump that Russian President Vladimir Putin would “eat you for lunch.”

Ukrainians argue that being empowered to use the weaponry against Russian territory would reduce the threat from Russia by forcing it to pull key forces deeper inside its country. They also want to be able to hit a bridge that connects the Crimean Peninsula with the Russian mainland and forms a key military supply route. But Biden has been cautious, worried that allowing the change could draw the United States more deeply into direct conflict with the Kremlin.

In May, after Russian forces pushed over the border into the Kharkiv region, Ukrainian officials amplified their pleas to be able to use certain U.S. weaponry to strike back into Russia. Washington debated the issue for 17 days as Kharkiv nearly came within artillery range, and eventually approved the use of certain weapons, including HIMARS rocket artillery, inside of Russia.

Even that agreement limited the Ukrainians to striking only within a small distance of the border, a move that Kyiv said left them unable to target key airfields – including those they said stored airplanes used to drop glide bombs on Kharkiv.

With Russia advancing quickly on the eastern city of Pokrovsk, there are echoes of the May pleas in the revamped campaign to approve the use of ATACMS and other long-range weapons inside of Russia. Ukraine is doubtful of U.S. claims that any such move would cause a dangerous escalation by Putin, and insist it is necessary to help turn the tide of the war.

“It’s perhaps some kind of mystical story, there isn’t a single rational argument in it for the U.S., they just believe that it could lead to something bad,” said one Ukrainian official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the issue of strikes inside Russia candidly. “We’ve proven many times that Putin can do nothing new in response.”

Meeting with Zelenskyy will give Blinken a chance to hear “exactly how the Ukrainians see their needs in this moment, toward what objectives, and what we can do to support those needs,” Blinken said a day earlier in London, before flying to Poland and taking an overnight journey by armored train to the Ukrainian capital.

Blinken didn’t plan to spend the night in Kyiv during his lightning visit to Ukraine. But he did stop for a bowl of borscht, the famous Ukrainian beet soup, at the boutique restaurant of a chef, Yevhen Klopotenko, who successfully campaigned for the soup to be added to a UNESCO cultural heritage list.

The Harris-Trump debate aired during the train journey, and some diplomats stayed up to catch the first part of the joust to prepare themselves for questions in Kyiv about the U.S. political situation.

Some European policymakers are also making public calls for lifting all restrictions on weapons use, in an effort to push the United States to get on board. Diplomats wouldn’t rule out a U.S. policy shift as the goal posts have repeatedly moved during the war.

“Anything near the border is seen as fairer game, but the debate now is about the range of how deep they can strike,” a European diplomat said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to comment on sensitive discussions. “The U.S. is more cautious on this. There are several countries calling for lifting all restrictions but most of them haven’t provided those long-range weapons so that’s a little bit easier to say.”

Ukrainian leaders last month made a surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, seizing hundreds of square miles of Russian territory in the first major Ukrainian advance into their aggressor since the February 2022 invasion. The move has unsettled many ordinary Russians in the region and delivered a morale boost to the Ukrainian public. Leaders in Kyiv say that the seizure of territory will help increase pressure on Moscow to make a deal to end the war.

Blinken traveled to Ukraine with the new British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who has been in office since his Labour Party took power in July. The U.S. diplomat said that he and Lammy would bring their findings back to their leaders ahead of a Friday meeting in Washington between Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The two leaders will discuss the Ukrainian request, Blinken said. Britain has supplied Ukraine with long-range Storm Shadow missile systems but has contended with the same questions about strikes into Russian territory.

The Biden administration supplied Ukraine with long-range ATACMS missiles last September, but has not allowed them to be used against Russian territory. The missiles, which have a range of about 180 miles, have been used extensively against Russian forces in Crimea, Ukrainian territory that the Kremlin occupied in 2014. Ukraine has a dwindling stockpile of the missiles, and U.S. officials say that the Pentagon’s own stocks are also sufficiently limited that they cannot offer many more to Kyiv.

Ukraine sees “a shortage of [long-range] missiles and cooperation,” Zelenskyy told senior defense officials, including Austin, at Friday’s meeting in Ramstein, Germany. “We think it is wrong that there are such steps. We need to have this long-range capability not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace.”

Zelenskyy on Wednesday told a conference in Kyiv that his “victory plan” would have “both psychological and political … influence” on Russia’s decision to end the war.

“If partners support it, it will make it easier for Ukraine to force Russia to end the war,” Zelenskyy told the gathering of backers of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy will travel later this month to the United States, where he will attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York. He has said that he hopes to present the plan to Biden while in the country.

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Francis reported from Brussels.