Ukraine has every right to hit Russians in Russia with U.S. weapons
From the small town of Staryi Saltiv in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, roughly 9 miles behind the front line, the fighting was clearly audible and visible in the near distance. Plumes of smoke rose from the city of Vovchansk as it burned, the result of Russian artillery and airstrikes. Ukrainian helicopters flew in and out on strike missions, their pilots nearly touching the tops of trees with the wheels of their old ex-Soviet gunships. Heavy military equipment and convoys of Ukrainian troops lined the roads heading toward the front. Coaches full of evacuees, carrying whatever valuables they could, headed in the opposite direction toward the relative safety of Kharkiv city.
This didn’t have to happen.
For the past two months, Russia has amassed troops on its side of the Kharkiv border, in Belgorod region, as Ukrainian reconnaissance teams looked on helplessly, unable to use their most effective U.S.-built artillery systems, the M142 HIMARS and the M270 MLRS. This is because of Washington’s insistence that such munitions be aimed strictly within Ukrainian territory, parameters that appear increasingly ineffective in light of Russia’s new offensive, meant to stretch an already critical Ukrainian defensive line to breaking point and possibly bring Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, home to some 1.5 million people, into the range of heavy artillery…
The rest of this article is free to read at New Lines magazine.