President Biden on Monday told reporters that the US will not send Ukraine rocket systems that can strike targets inside Russian territory.
“We’re not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia,” Biden told reporters.
Biden’s comments came after several media outlets reported that the administration was leaning towards providing Ukraine with Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS), which Ukrainian officials have been requesting for months.
A White House official later clarified Biden’s comments and said sending the MLRS is still on the table, but that it wouldn’t have long-range capabilities. “MLRS is under consideration, but nothing is on the table with long-range strike capabilities,” the official said.
If equipped with long-range munitions, the MLRS can reach targets up to 190 miles away. But the US could potentially send Kyiv the MLRS with shorter-range rockets that can reach between 20-45 miles, which would still be the longest range weapons given to Ukraine. The shells fired by the M777 Howitzers the US has been shipping to Ukraine can hit targets about 15 miles away.
After the reports came out that the US was considering giving Ukraine long-range rockets, Russian officials warned strongly against the move. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said it would be a “serious step towards unacceptable escalation.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, welcomed Biden’s decision not to give Ukraine weapons that can hit Russia, calling it “rational.”
The US is expected to announce a new weapons package for Ukraine soon that will be taken from the new $40 billion aid package Biden recently signed into law.
Waiting for threats from Vlod. He’ll teach them and make peace. Well, one can dream.
Vlod is going to be looking at housing in Great Britain soon.
The de facto dictator Zelensky would definitely have used the US taxpayers’ weapons to attack Russian civilians, the way he has attacked Donbass civilians every day for years, to make Russia declare war, which would lead to a Russian mobilization. Zelly would do that in the hope of escalating so that NATO would enter the war, which he has yelled about for months now, cursing Westerners for not giving him enough. Never mind that millions would die in the big war he dreams of.
His constant argument when people ask him about that escalation: “We’re ALREADY in World War 3! See how clever I am with words, you can’t contradict me because then you’d be saying Russia is holding back and that I said something false, which you Western reporters aren’t allowed to do.”
He should just leave for Switzerland with all the bribes he got from the Chinese construction companies.
I am not sure if one can call Zelensky a dictator. I think he actually has no real free will and is just a pawn of the US and the UK.
That sounds a tad dysfunctional, doesn’t it?…
His mansions are in Miami, Italy, and Israel, but yes, he’s stolen more than enough to build another mansion in Switzerland.
Sure, Jan. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/may/02/facebook-posts/no-proof-ukraine-president-zelenskyy-owns-35-milli/
Good news to me. One of the most favorable suprises that he has sprung on us. Let’s hope he continues to moderate his words and deeds.
One can hope but we’ll have to wait and see…
Absolutely no boots on the ground.
Poor ZelBoy, crying in his beer—-er, coke…
Zelensky was just a so-so actor/comedian with a drug problem, as Ukrainian president the dude has always been in way above his head. He’ll be lucky to get out of Ukraine alive and, if he does get out, will live in fear of assassination for the rest of his life. Azov Neo-Nazi nutters and/or the family members of the thousands of men who Zelensky ordered to their cannon-fodder deaths will have excellent reasons for seeking revenge.
Send the systems, Russia will destroy or capture them when they take all of Ukraine.
Maybe Biden’s handlers have finally seen reason. The war didn’t turn out to be good for Biden’s ratings, which are now lower than any president at this time since they started measuring. Would have gone up if Zelensky had won, but that was a pipe dream – maybe they finally took a look at a map.
They know the two million Russians in Crimea voted to leave Ukraine way back in the 1990s. They know Donbass is Russian, and now that Russia has freed it, it won’t go back to being held by the Zelensky regime again.
Now is the time for peace talks before Russia rolls up the east, after the main forces and fortifications in the east have been neutralized. Biden can look like a diplomat on the world stage, that’s always a good look. Find something else to carry the election.
Clearly, Biden chose war in large part for reasons of domestic politics, and so the failure of it in those terms is a defeat of Biden’s War no matter what else happens.
Biden is a moth-eaten sock puppet, he was told what to do. What I find incredible is that Europe, who needs Russia’s engery more than anyone else, joined in on the guaranteed (for them) economic suicide.
Like Russia, Ukraine is governmental divided into “Oblasts”. Donbas is not an oblast, it is a region. Russia now claims to fully control the Ukrainian Oblast of Luhansk and much, but not all of Donetsk.
Medvedev‘s key quote was retaliation for this escalation would be Russian attacks on US and NATO ‘decision making centers’
Hypersonic missiles do seem to have a deterrence effect
This after Medvedev said that if they do, Russia will retaliate against “decision centers not in the ukraine at all”. US understood.
Washington knows the score. They know that they’ve lost and that the best Nato trained (Nazi) army there is, is no more. The last of it is getting grinded down right now. Strike Russia and Russia strike directly at Brussels and the Pentagram. You can’t be more “Crystal clear” than that.
And concise, very concise…
Promises… Promises…!
Biden: “The U.S. currently sees “no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” Biden said though he stressed that Moscow’s “occasional rhetorical to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible.””
Not sure what Russians have to do to communicate their intentions. Show a lighter approaching the fuse on Netanyahu’s bomb cartoon?