National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead” that it was “common sense” that President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use American weapons inside Russia.
Host Jake Tapper said, “The U.S. has just changed its policy allowing the Ukrainians to use American weapons in attacks inside Russia. Now President Biden said Ukraine won’t use the weapons to talk to target Moscow, or to target the Kremlin is there any other guidance beyond that?”
Kirby said, “This is a really common sense guidance that the president has now given to Ukraine. When they are under imminent threat and it’s just across the border and they know they’re going to get hit. They should be allowed to hit back in that kind of scenario.”
He added, “The only place where that really applies with the geography is up north of Kharkiv, where the Russians had until very recently tried to pressure that city. It seemed to look like they’re kind of backing off right now. There’s no other place really in Ukraine geographically where that’s likely to happen because the other places where the Russians are, are actually inside Ukraine, in the Donbas and in Crimea. So right now it mostly applies to Kharkiv, but not because we put some geographic boundaries on it, but just because of the guidance itself going after an imminent threat that’s just across the border.”
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