Zelensky: To win the war, the US must lift its restrictions on attacks on military targets in Russia

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selensky on Thursday welcomed the support of allies who extensive new aid and a path to NATO membership, even as he urged that aid arrive more quickly and Restrictions to be lifted on the use of US weapons to attack military targets inside Russia.

“If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save and defend our country, we must lift all restrictions,” said Selenskyj alongside NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in the final hours of a summit at which Ukraine was promised new military aid to strengthen its defense against Russia.

Previously, President Joe Biden had new military aid package and promised Selenskyj: “We will stay by your side, period.”

Although Selenskyj publicly thanked for the package and NATO heads of state and government promised that Ukraine was now on the right track, “irreversible path” to membership He also raised the alarm within the military alliance: Ukraine could not win the war with Russia, which is now in its third year, if the US did not lift the restrictions on the use of its weapons against military targets in Russia.

The Biden administration allows Ukraine to launch weapons into Russian territory only for the purpose of retaliating against Russian forces that attack it or are preparing to attack it. It fears that the increased use of American-made weapons could provoke Russia into expanding the war.

But Zelensky is pushing for greater leeway so that US weapons could also be used to attack key military bases and facilities deeper into Russian territory.

Calls for the restrictions to be lifted have grown louder in recent months, following Russia’s military successes at a time when political power struggles in the United States have delayed vital military support for Ukraine.

Stoltenberg and French President Emmanuel Macron support Ukraine’s efforts to gain more room to use US-supplied weapons. When we tell the Ukrainians, “You have no right to reach the point from which the missiles are launched, we are telling them that we are supplying you with weapons, but you cannot defend yourself,” Macron said in May.

Stoltenberg argued on Thursday that the war had changed since its early days, when fighting took place deeper into Ukrainian territory.

“Since Russia opened a new front, the only way to hit military targets, military launch pads or airfields attacking Ukraine is to attack military targets on Russian territory,” he said.

Ukraine was the focus of the 75-year-old military alliance’s summit, which was overshadowed by concerns about growing support for Russia’s invasion from China and North Korea and came amid a turbulent political cycle in the US, with Democrats increasingly concerned about Biden’s ability to serve another four years.

Later on Thursday, all eyes will be on Biden as he concludes the summit of 32 NATO heads of state and government in Washington with a press conference. This will give him a new chance to prove to the American public that he is capable of shocking debate flop questioned the future of his presidency.

In a one-on-one meeting with Zelensky earlier in the day, Biden described the military aid package as his eighth since taking office. with this latest consisting of $225 million in support, including a additional Patriot missile system to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses against a deadly onslaught of Russian air strikes.

The Patriot air defense system, the second the US has delivered to Ukraine, is one of several announced at the NATO summit this week and is part of a flurry of pledges to deliver weapons to Ukraine to help it fend off Russian attacks, including one of the deadliest of the war this week that killed a Children’s Hospital in Kiew.

The devastating Missile attack on the eve of the summit marking NATO’s 75th anniversary, stressed that Russian President Vladimir Putin may not be ready to make peace for some time.

Commenting on NATO allies’ declaration that Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to membership, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, which Putin chairs, said Moscow should do everything “to ensure that this irreversible path of Ukraine into NATO leads to the disappearance of either Ukraine or NATO, or better yet, to both.”

Although NATO leaders have promised that Ukraine will one day be a member of the alliance, accession will only be possible after the war with Russia and when all allies agree that Ukraine has fulfilled all conditions.

On Thursday, Zelensky also attended a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council with the Allied leaders. This forum, which was established a year ago, brings together the 32 allies and Kyiv on an equal footing to exchange concerns and information.

In addition to the offers for more military support, NATO launched a new program to to guarantee the supply of military equipment and to coordinate the training of the beleaguered Ukrainian armed forces. NATO members also committed to maintaining the current level of military aid – about 40 billion euros ($43.5 billion annually) – for at least one year.

The final events of the NATO summit come one day after NATO describes China as a “decisive pioneer” of Russia’s war against UkraineChina, in turn, accused NATO of seeking security at the expense of others and warned the Western military alliance against bringing the same “chaos” to Asia.

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AP reporters Zeke Miller, Aamer Madhani and Rebecca Santana in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.