National Security Advisor to the President of the United States Jake Sullivan in an interview New Yorker said that Joe Biden believed that providing ATACMS to Ukraine would mean an “unacceptable escalation” for Russia, but this refusal argument fell away after London and Paris transferred Storm Shadow/Scalp to Kyiv.
According to Sullivan, Biden has long been opposed to transferring long-range weapons to Ukraine due to concerns that ATACMS’ range allows it to hit targets on Russian territory, which could mean an “unacceptable escalation” for Russia.
But after the decision of Britain and France to transfer their long-range missiles, this argument was no longer necessary, the presidential adviser said.
At the same time, he told the New Yorker that providing Ukraine with long-range missiles “would deplete our stockpile at a time when we need these missiles for contingencies: be it Iran, North Korea or China.”
Sullivan himself, according to a former American official, offered Biden until December 2022 to use the argument of providing Ukraine with ATACMS to put pressure on Russia, but the US President did not want to do this.
Read also: New Yorker: Biden approved sending ATACMS to Ukraine in time for Zelensky’s visit back in September
2023-10-10 06:11:00
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