WASHINGTON, Nov 17 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden’s administration will allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, three sources familiar with the matter said, in a significant change to Washington’s policy in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Ukraine plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days, the sources said, without revealing details due to operational security concerns.

The move by the United States two months before President-elect Donald Trump takes office on Jan. 20 follows months of requests by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to allow Ukraine’s military to use U.S. weapons to hit Russian military targets far from its border.

The change follows Russia’s deployment of North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces, a development that has caused alarm in Washington and Kyiv.

The first deep strikes are likely to be carried out using ATACMS rockets, which have a range of up to 190 miles (306 km), according to the sources.

    • ouch@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      Bad news mate. WW3 already started a while ago. The world is essentially in a proxy war against Russia.

      • DictatrshipOfTheseus@lemmy.ml
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        13 hours ago

        If you include the global south (which obviously you should), most of the world sides with Russia. I’d agree with you that unless things really take a turn towards deescalation, which is laughably unlikely, history will look back at this time as WWIII having already begun. But it’s a lot more complicated than just a proxy war against Russia. It’s a proxy war the Western Imperialists via NATO but under the hegemonic control of the US in particular, is waging against the rising challengers of that hegemony. And primary among those is China, which is why we have the constant and unrelenting sinophobia and anti-China propaganda. It’s just that Russia has just been the first and boldest to actually use military force against the encroachment of western imperialist ambitions, but Iran is being forced into taking action now too. Also Hezbollah and Anserallah of course, but I mean among those that are fully recognized as state actors.

        But no, if this does shape up to truly be WWIII, then the line is not between Russia and the world. The lines are between Western Imperialists and Multipolarists.

  • pelikan@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    15 hours ago

    The craziest thing of our time is that right-wing bigots claim to end the war fast with peace talks, while so-called “progressives” are going to prolong their proxy war as long as there is at least one Ukrainian still alive.

    • caboose2006@lemmy.ca
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      14 hours ago

      End the war fast by giving up land, and the people on that land. If you know anything about history Ukrainians under Russian rule is a completely unacceptable outcome to anyone but complete psychopaths.

      • isa41@lemm.ee
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        14 hours ago

        Spoken like someone who clearly has zero knowledge of actual history. Especially considering a large part of the reason why the coup government in Ukraine began their campaign of ethnically cleansing the eastern population of their own country was because the people living there more strongly identified with Russia, wanted to be able to keep speaking Russian without persecution, and eventually pleaded with Russia to intervene on their behalf, which Russia fortunately did. But anyone who actually understands the history of the region is a “psychopath.” lol

        • caboose2006@lemmy.ca
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          32 minutes ago

          Spoken like someone who fell for russian propaganda hook line and sinker. You’re either a useful idiot or a bot yourself

        • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
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          11 hours ago

          the people living there more strongly identified with Russia, wanted to be able to keep speaking Russian without persecution, and eventually pleaded with Russia to intervene on their behalf, which Russia fortunately did

          this is the first time I hear this story. the previous story was “cleaning out nazis” or something like that. it seems goalposts have grown wheels

  • BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    15 hours ago

    I’ve said this before on this issue, but why is Biden still president and allowed to make these descions? The world finally forced to realize that his brain is pudding but they just let him stay president and make descions that could lead to war with the Russian Federation. Its completely depraved

  • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    19 hours ago

    three sources familiar with the matter

    Anonymous sources. On the one hand, this is weak tea, but on the other, I wouldn’t put it past the Biden administration at all.

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      17 hours ago

      Reuters and NYT are reporting it. Those outlets get their talking points straight from the white house. There is little reason to doubt this.

    • FreudianCafe@lemmy.ml
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      18 hours ago

      Things were going way too quietly since the election. This is probably the first step towards starting the major conflict

    • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      Actually, leading with the electrical attacks is the wrong way to remind you how insane you are, since no amount of damage to Ukraine will cause you to flinch. You seem like the type who would only flinch at a strategic nuclear exchange. You probably haven’t noticed that Russia has promised to apply more pressure in the Middle East/West Asia region against US forces. You cannot just take potshots at them from a safe distance, US forces are deployed in a global occupation!

    • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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      14 hours ago

      Let’s see how you feel about this when, like after the Kerch bridge bombing, Russia resumes attacking electrical infrastructure. You had a little grace period there you know. Well, you don’t know anything actually.

  • badelf@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    14 hours ago

    It’s only for four months. Putin doesn’t mind how many Russians will die until Trump gets in and tells Ukraine to surrender his buddy.

    • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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      7 hours ago

      If Putin doesn’t care how many Ukrainians die, why is he even averse to hitting their rail lines and electrical infrastructure? They clearly save these attacks for retaliation when negotiations fall through yet again and the bellicose US statements get out of hand yet again.

      The whole mystification of Iran and Russia’s clear strategy of “fuck off so we can stabilize and develop” that inevitably results in risks to our own stability is too funny. Western orientalism is strong in 2024 as it was in 2001.

      Russia doesn’t benefit from destabilized hostile states on its border. What about that is so hard for liberals to understand? Putin and the oligarchs literally wanted to loot their country and sell shit to the west and you idiots have driven them to China. I should thank you, but you didn’t have any say in the matter.

      • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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        2 hours ago

        Just wanna point out that in this initial reply to the comment tree, you did the exact same thing I just called you out on:
        Misrepresenting (or to not assume malice, misREADING) another comment to then spin your entire narrative around that error.
        They said:

        Putin doesn’t mind how many Russians will die

        You base your retort on:

        If Putin doesn’t care how many Ukrainians die

        “this already shows you are terrible at reading. How am I supposed to expect you to treat anything else I show you seriously when you cannot even read your own material?”

      • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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        6 hours ago

        Ah so putin is the good guy whos checks notes liberating the ukraine and totally reasonable in his target choices?

        • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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          5 hours ago

          Why exactly are you so convinced Russian leadership wants to massacre Ukraine and have a wasteland on the border? Ukraine was a vital trading partner for Russia prior to the western coup. Why do you think that the US and its allies fund a proxy war on Ukrainian territory? Out of the goodness of their hearts? They have been privatizing state assets in Ukraine, speculating on them, taking advantage of the spike in European requirement for US natural gas to replace Russia, and making huge military industrial purchases to replace what Russia destroys.

          I’m sure Russia will settle for a slowly steamrolled Ukraine as a second option if the terror attacks on Russian office buildings etcetera continue, they might not even stop at western Ukraine, it could go on for years. They have been willing at many points to freeze the conflict so that they can go on making some money with Ukraine. Like I said it took them ten years to come to the aid of Donbas while civilians were being bombed there (Ukrainian leadership openly bragged about making the eastern Ukrainians’ children stay in bomb shelters rather than school). The west chose the drawn out destruction of cities, the destruction of a dam for no good reason.

          • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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            5 hours ago

            surely you have a lot of irrefutable sources for your claims.
            It’s crazy how many people here are touting the widely disclaimed coup or genocide.
            Like surely there’s a lot of publicly accessible, independent data on all of that, right?
            Surely there’s a very good reason why Crimea was invaded in a cloak-and-dagger operation by unmarked soldiers while russia officially demented any accusations it’s their troops? Surely.

            • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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              5 hours ago

              It’s 2024 and you are deepthroating the White House narrative. You trust the people who invaded Iraq because they said Al-Qaeda was there to tell you who “the bad guy” is.

              I will show you plenty of sources, including actual video of Ukrainian forces torturing and killing civilians that has been verified independently. But first I want a source for your claim that Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilians. I will show you how easy it is to verify that your sources are not independent, funded by western finance capital, and undermined by statements from think tanks which cater to higher brow audiences on “your side” aka the ruling class that knows you don’t know how to research and most of their population is functionally illiterate.

              I am well aware of what the headlines say. You don’t know your head from your ass without the Associated Press or the BBC weighing in on the subject.

              • shapesandstuff@feddit.org
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                3 hours ago

                White House narrative

                Muricacentric much?

                But first I want a source for your claim that Russia is indiscriminately bombing civilians.

                Strawman, letsgooo.
                Besides your random made up arguments, here are some numbers on civilian casualties:
                https://www.statista.com/statistics/1293492/ukraine-war-casualties/

                There’s of course a bunch of civilian massacres still under active investigation, plus a lot of varying numbers between UA officials and independent reports. Mostly it’s just the precise numbers that are unclear, not the act itself. See:

                https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/f/a/515868.pdf https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/06/ukraine-deadly-mariupol-theatre-strike-a-clear-war-crime-by-russian-forces-new-investigation/ https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1107854331/russian-missile-strike-shopping-mall-kremenchuk

                But of course these are all western propaganda, please enlighten me with your credible sources full of irrefutable proof that i’m entirely consumed by fake news.

                • LukácsFan1917@lemmy.ml
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                  3 hours ago

                  It’s not a strawman you just again said that “of course” there’s a bunch of civilian massacres under investigation. You literally just made the same argument you said was a strawman a sentence ago. Show your sources so we can expose your total intellectual dependence on spoon feeding from the media of the US and its allies.

                  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) verified a total of 35,160 civilian casualties during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as of July 31, 2024. Of them, 23,640 people were reported to have been injured. However, OHCHR specified that the real numbers could be higher.

                  I already know of this. First of all this statistic is of the total reports of civilian deaths on both sides in the war, this already shows you are terrible at reading. How am I supposed to expect you to treat anything else I show you seriously when you cannot even read your own material? You can’t chalk up every single civilian death reported in the conflict to Russia, that is completely idiotic.

                  Second, they are taking Ukrainian government reports at face value. Prior to the war in Ukraine The Guardian and BBC and NYT all commented on how corrupt the Ukrainian state is, among the worst in the world.

                  Third, the UN human rights commission is headed by an EU guy, and is overall an institution which is controlled by the US and never intervenes in US imperialism. The US openly mocks UN officials it has problems with, like with the Iraq war, and uses its clout to prevent Iranian, Russian and Venezuelan politicians from accessing the UN without being arrested. The UN’s total abdication of responsibility as an international human rights institution and subservient reliance on the US and its allies has been put on full display by a year of genocide in Gaza.

                  https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/03/17/human-rights-ngo-hrw-amnesty-us-government/ Yes Amnesty has close ties to the White House. The global financial system, telecommunications, journalist and academia, it’s all very centralized with America, Western Europe, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, and to some extent wealth petromonarchies’ main cities Riyadh, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi

  • vfreire85@lemmy.ml
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    15 hours ago

    they didn’t worked within ukraine, what makes them believe they’re gonna work within russia.

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      14 hours ago

      One interesting explanation from Mohammed Mirandi was the establishment wants to escalate as much as possible to prevent Russia from accepting de escalation when Trump comes to power without major concessions from Ukraine.