Biden green lights ATACMS for Kursk; SecDef Austin in Australia; Trump stands by Hegseth; Reed, Shaheen request Musk probe; And a bit more.

Biden lifts restrictions on long-range missiles

It’s been 999 days since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And just before that anniversary, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden finally authorized Ukraine’s use of U.S.-made long-range missiles to attack Russian military targets inside Russia, with an early emphasis on Ukrainian-held territory inside Russia’s Kursk region, U.S. officials told multiple news outlets over the weekend, including the New York Times and the Associated Press. 

It’s a decision Ukraine’s president has been requesting for months, at least partly because many Russian aircraft launch missile and glide bomb attacks against Ukraine from well inside Russia’s borders. Since Ukraine first requested the Army Tactical Missile System authorization, White House officials signaled a reluctance to escalate the conflict and potentially provoke Russia into launching a nuclear attack or a war on NATO in response.

The missiles, which can be fired from High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, can fly as far as 190 miles, potentially allowing Ukraine to strike additional Russian military resupply routes, Defense One’s Patrick Tucker writes. Back in August, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War published a series of maps to illustrate how the White House restrictions have hampered Ukraine’s ability to target Russian forces that were directly attacking Ukraine.

But Russia’s military has escalated its own drone and missile attacks on Ukraine in recent days, and Russia has been more deliberately targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with long-range strikes, which could prove especially devastating as Ukraine heads into its third consecutive winter under the boot of Russian invasion forces. And this winter, those invasion forces are backed up by a contingent of North Korean troops.

Why lift the restrictions now? The short answer is North Korea, U.S. officials reportedly said. The president was reportedly convinced “by concerns that the Russian assault force would be able to overwhelm Ukrainian troops in Kursk if they were not allowed to defend themselves with long-range weapons,” according to the Times. And AP reported Biden’s decision “followed meetings over the last two days with the leaders of South Korea, Japan and China,” noting “the addition of North Korean troops was central to the talks” with those leaders. 

Think tanker reax: “The Biden Administration's shift to allow ATACMS use in Russia is a good thing, but it must extend beyond Kursk Oblast,” George Barros of ISW wrote on social media Sunday. “There are hundreds of valid, legal, legitimate, and operationally consequential military targets in range of Ukrainian ATACMS,” he added. 

Another thing: “Both the French and UK government[s] have previously indicated a willingness to approve Ukrainian use against targets in Russia of the cruise missiles they have supplied,” Matthew Savill of the London-based Royal United Services Institute writes. “However, both rely on updated targeting data that probably comes from the US, meaning that they too have been blocked from Ukrainian use,” he notes. 

“It stands to reason that relaxation of the ATACMS criteria will similarly lead to some relaxation on both Storm Shadow and SCALP,” Savill speculated. “If so, from the Ukrainian perspective it would be preferable for this take place privately and not be announced until after first use, though the Russians already have some advance warning.”

For what it’s worth “The overall supply of ATACMS missiles is short, so U.S. officials in the past have questioned whether they could give Ukraine enough to make a difference,” AP noted, while the Times points out, “U.S. officials said they do not believe that the decision will change the course of the war.” 

While Republican Sen. Roger Wicker said he’s “encouraged” by the decision, which he also said came far too late, others close to President-elect Donald Trump questioned the change in policy. That included David Sacks, a close ally of Elon Musk and a favored Trump donor. “President Trump won a clear mandate to end the war in Ukraine. So what does Biden do in his final two months in office? Massively escalate it. Is his goal to hand Trump the worst situation possible?” Sacks wrote Sunday on Musk’s social media platform.

The view from Kyiv: “Strikes are not carried out with words. These things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves,” President Volodymir Zelenskyy said on social media Sunday. 

One Ukrainian military POV: “With Trump, everyone is joking that it’s better to have a horrible end than unending horror,” a soldier told the BBC last week. Trump, he said, is “willing to take hard decisions, and from there, we’re getting better chances to get a good decision versus Democrats, who would be reluctant to make any hard decisions. They’re pretty weak. Overall, it’s surprisingly not as bad as I expected. So overall, the morale is quite nice. And we’re all looking forward to seeing what’s going to happen.”

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