NATO’s boss wants to free Ukraine to strike hard inside Russia

livemint.com:

Kharkiv, close to the border, to deny Ukraine the possibility of using these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes it very hard for them to defend themselves." It has long been a source of frustration for Ukrainians that if they want to go after targets on Russian soil they must depend on home-produced drones, which have only limited utility. Their anger has been boiling over since May 10th, when the Russians began a big offensive across the border only 20 miles (32km) from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city. It had been subject to pulverising aerial bombardment for several months before.

Mr Stoltenberg does not expect this action to lead to a Russian breakthrough. “They will continue to push and continue to gain some marginal ground, and they’re willing to pay a very high price for these marginal gains," he said. But he does warn that Ukraine is struggling.

And he has harsh words for NATO’s European members: “European allies promised one million artillery shells," he said. “We haven’t seen anything close to that." In an interview with AFP on May 17th Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, pleaded for permission to use donated weapons on targets inside Russia. He emphasised that their use would be defensive at a time when Russia was trying to exploit shortages in manpower and munitions, the latter the result of delayed support from America and those unfulfilled promises by Europe.

Western governments, he said, wanted “Ukraine to win in a way that Russia does not lose". Some Western analysts say America has sought to micromanage the way in which Ukraine fights ever since the war began. Time after time, the Americans have denied Ukraine weapons it urgently requested, only to relent