The US Secretary of State has said that it is up to Ukraine to decide whether to strike Russian territory with US weapons, as President Volodymyr Zelensky cancelled all upcoming foreign travel amid a deteriorating situation on the battlefield.
Antony Blinken told a press conference in the Ukrainian capital that while Washington did not encourage Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia with weapons supplied by the US, it believed it was a decision Kyiv should make for itself – in what appeared to be a key shift in American policy.
The US has previously asked Ukraine to refrain from using US weapons against Russia itself over a fear of escalating the war, and dragging Nato into what would be a far wider conflict.
The comments follow the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, lifting a similar restriction on using British weapons against Russia. “Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it’s defending itself,” he said this month.
While in Kyiv, Mr Blinken also announced another $2bn (£1.5bn) in military aid, and said the US was focused on Patriot missile defence systems, for which Ukrainian ministers have asked repeatedly, as well as other critical forms of air defence.
“We are rushing ammunition, armoured vehicles, missiles and air defences to get them to the front lines,” Mr Blinken said.
His visit comes as Ukraine faces a critical situation in its north-eastern Kharkiv region, where Russia launched a new offensive last Friday, capturing a succession of villages. The Russian defence ministry claimed today that it had captured a further two – Hlyboke and Lukiantsi.
However, Ukraine said its forces had recaptured the settlements on Wednesday. “Units of the North group of troops liberated the settlements of Hlyboke and Lukyantsi in Kharkiv region and also advanced deep into the enemy defences,” Ukraine’s defence ministry said.
Ukraine also said it had “partially pushed back” Russian troops from the town of Vovchansk in the region, and repelled 18 Russian assaults, with clashes continuing in parts of the town, as well as the border village of Buhruvatka.
Ukraine’s general staff had reported late on Tuesday that troops had fallen back from areas in Lukyantsi and Vovchansk “to save the lives of our servicemen and avoid losses”.
Oleksiy Kharkivskiy, Vovchansk’s patrol police chief, said the situation in the city was “extremely difficult”.
Mr Zelensky said on Tuesday evening that the situation on the front lines was “the most difficult” in the Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. “Our warriors are destroying the occupier who is trying to advance: everything is quite tense. But we have reinforced the directions, including the Kharkiv ones.
“Many warriors — especially Kharkiv residents — have risen to defend the Kharkiv region. They are doing their job, and I thank them all for their efficiency.”
On Wednesday, he postponed all foreign visits, which would include planned trips to Spain and Portugal, due to the situation in the Kharviv region.
More than 8,000 people have been evacuated from the Kharkiv region since Friday, Ukraine’s state emergency service said, with most of the evacuees “women, elderly people, people with reduced mobility and people with disabilities and children”.
Meanwhile, on the southern front, the Russian defence ministry claimed that its troops had taken control of Robotyne in the Zaporizhzhia region, the state-owned news agency RIA reported.
