This week, President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to strike inside Russia using longer-range American missiles. It’s an overdue, relatively small escalation after Russia’s bigger escalations and relentless attacks, letting Ukraine partially take the gloves off. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy officially requested this in May, and presumably asked in private before that. It will help Ukraine hinder Russia’s war machine by striking ammunition depots, weapons manufacturing, airfields and other military targets.
The apparent cause is the U.S. election. President-elect Donald Trump has long shown a strong affinity for Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and reacted to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 by gushingly calling it “savvy” and “genius.” In subsequent years, Trump, his incoming Vice President-elect JD Vance and top surrogate/donor/adviser Elon Musk have all advocated a “peace plan” for Ukraine that amounts to “give Putin what he wants.” While Biden’s lifting restrictions on Ukraine is probably too late to make a big difference, it could cause some disruption to Russia’s war effort and improve Ukraine’s position before Trump tries to force them into a Russia-friendly deal.
It’s an overdue, relatively small escalation after Russia’s bigger escalations and relentless attacks, letting Ukraine partially take the gloves off.
Knowing that the United States is about to have a pro-Putin president makes Biden’s caution look awful in hindsight, but it looked excessive at the time as well. Caution made sense early in the war, since we didn’t have a good read on Russian capabilities. And keeping NATO forces out of direct combat with Russia still makes sense, since that could trigger an escalatory spiral that spins out of control, or at least undermine political support for Ukraine in NATO countries. But in early 2024, after two years of war, it was apparent Russia was doing everything it could think of to defeat Ukraine, and wasn’t keeping a large military capacity in reserve.
Except, of course, for nuclear weapons, but those are checked by mutually assured destruction and the global nuclear taboo. Russia fears World War III, just like everyone else, as well as alienating the large countries it still gets along with, namely China and India. Russia has never attacked weapons shipments on their way to Ukraine, showing that no matter their rhetoric, their actions respect NATO deterrence. By contrast, Israel has bombed Hezbollah-bound weapons shipments inside Syria for years.
But Russia bluffs a lot. They annexed occupied parts of Ukraine, and declared that any counterattack would cause nuclear war. Ukrainian forces kept coming, took some territory back, and Russia did little in response.
They convinced Elon Musk that a Ukrainian attack on Russian ships off the coast of Crimea would cause WWIII, and Musk cut off Starlink internet services to thwart a Ukrainian sea drone attack in progress. Shortly after, Ukraine hit Russian ships near Crimea without using Starlink, and Russia did little in response.
Ukraine has used U.S.-provided missiles to attack Russian military targets in occupied parts of Ukraine. They’ve used Ukrainian-made drones to attack inside Russia, including an airbase nearly 2,000 kilometer (about 1,243 miles) from the Ukrainian border. In response, Russia didn’t do anything it wasn’t already doing.
There is a possibility that longer-range strikes with U.S. missiles would require U.S. satellites for targeting, but since Russia didn’t offer a response to U.S. missile strikes on Russian forces in Ukraine or Ukrainian strikes inside Russia, it’s unlikely that Ukrainian strikes with U.S. missiles inside Russia represents such a red line that they’d risk everything over it.
As a matter of international law, Ukraine using U.S. missiles to attack inside Russia is cut-and-dry. Russia started the war without provocation, and could stop at any time but chooses to continue. As the clear aggressor, Russia is in material breach of the U.N. charter, and under the right of self-defense, Ukraine is legally allowed to fire at Russian military targets, including inside Russia.
And Russia is responsible for a much bigger escalation this year, with thousands of North Korean troops joining their war effort. Russia had already been using Iran-provided drones and North Korea-provided artillery shells in Ukraine, much as Ukraine is using weapons from NATO countries. But the North Korean troops are the only foreign state forces to directly intervene.
It’s unlikely that Ukrainian strikes with U.S. missiles inside Russia represents such a red line that they’d risk everything over it.
After Biden’s announcement and Ukraine’s first use, Russia launched a new ballistic missile at the densely populated Ukrainian city of Dnipro, which Putin claimed was in retaliation for Ukraine shooting American (and British) missiles into Russia. It reportedly injured at least three people and damaged some buildings. The Ukrainians are unsurprisingly shrugging, since Russia shoots missiles, kamikaze drones and glide bombs at them every night, usually causing more damage. Two days before the ballistic missile attack, Russian drones killed 12 civilians and injured 13 more.
So while the missile technically represents an escalation, it’s mostly more of the same: attacking Ukrainians in an attempt to terrorize them into submission. For mourners, the weapon Russia used to kill their loved ones doesn’t matter. And if Russia could use these weapons to defeat the Ukrainian military and enable Russian ground forces to overrun the country, they would. The new weapon is an intermediate range (about 620 miles to 1,860 miles) ballistic missile called an Oreshnik, capable of carrying nuclear warheads (though this one wasn’t), and was at least as much nuclear saber-rattling against the West as an attack on Ukraine. For that reason, Russia probably would’ve used it anyway at some point, finding some excuse. There’s no intimidation factor from a new weapon if you don’t show it off. A day after the launch, Putin announced that Russia will mass produce the Oreshnik, and develop a “whole line” of similar missiles. That’s mostly a bluff, at least in the short term, since Russian defense manufacturing is already strained trying to feed the war in Ukraine, but it does represent yet another nuclear threat. The response has to be a hard no. The U.S. has nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, too, and Russia knows it. Giving in to these sort of threats shows that nuclear extortion works, encouraging more. If the West bends now, and later tries to take a stand, that raises the risk of an accidental spiral, because the earlier acquiescence could make Russia think that if it goes closer to the brink, the West will back down again. Calling the bluff is nerve-wracking, but a necessary strategic choice. Russia’s loud rhetoric — but relatively small action in response to Ukraine’s attack inside Russia with U.S. missiles — suggests that this red line was always fake. The ability never would’ve handed Ukraine victory on its own, but it would have improved their military position. If Trump cuts U.S. aid to Ukraine and pushes them to surrender to Russia as expected, Biden’s hesitancy to authorize it will go down in history as a painful what-if.
Nicholas Grossman
Nicholas Grossman is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, editor of Arc Digital and the author of "Drones and Terrorism." 
