So far the US says Ukraine can only fire its missiles a short distance – and Russia’s missile launchers are too far inside Russia to be targeted.
Russia has launched a barrage of airstrikes against Ukraine for the second night in a row, with the one on Monday being its largest since the beginning of the full-scale war with over 230 missiles and drones.
These attacks have renewed Ukrainian calls for its Western allies to lift the restrictions on using long-range weapons to hit targets inside Russia.
According to Fabian Rene Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, Ukraine needs to target Russia’s missile launchers themselves to prevent the barrages of airstrikes.
“You have to go after the shooter, you have to take (down) those launchers that deploy these missile systems and you cannot wait until they reach your airspace in order to counter them,” he told Euronews.
And that is the same message given by the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) which points out that there are at least 250 military and paramilitary objects in Russia within the range of the ATACMS missiles that the US has provided Ukraine.
The ISW believes Ukraine does not have to strike every single military and paramilitary object inside Russia within range of Western-provided weapons if it wants to start generating significant operational pressures on the Russian military.
But so far the US has stipulated that they can only be fired a short distance into Russia – and Hoffmann suggests this might need to change if Ukraine is to be able to defend itself properly.
“It is now for the decision-makers to really weigh those risks. Are you willing to take the risk that that we indeed experience, such a humanitarian disaster of unprecedented scale in Europe?” he told Euronews.
“Or do we take those residual risks in terms of, you know, escalation management and potential Russian responses and allow Ukraine to finally employ these Western weapon systems against Russian targets deeper inside Russian homeland?”
