Biden speeds up US arms deliveries to Ukraine ahead of Trump’s inauguration

A free rein, or something close. For more than two and a half years of war, Joe Biden imposed serious restrictions on the use of the weapons sent to Ukraine to repel the Russian invasion. The argument was the fear of provoking a disproportionate Russian response. Two months before leaving the White House ahead of the arrival of Donald Trump, who is expected to change the Biden administration’s policy, the outgoing U.S. president is hastily lifting these restrictions: first he approved the use of long-range missiles to hit targets in Russian territory; on Wednesday, the use of anti-personnel mines was approved. The advantages, Washington calculates, outweigh the perceived risks at this point.

At the same time as removing limits on the use of weapons on the battlefield, the U.S. government is also accelerating the pace of delivery of equipment to Kyiv. On Tuesday, it announced a shipment worth $100 million. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced a new package of military aid of $275 million, which will include “munitions for rocket and artillery systems, and anti-tank weapons.” Nearly $6 billion of the $61 billion that Congress approved last spring for Ukraine remains to be allocated, and Washington has promised to do so before the transfer of power on January 20.

On Wednesday, Austin also confirmed from Laos, where he is on an official tour, the lifting of one of the major barriers imposed until now: Ukrainian forces will be able to use anti-personnel mines to stop Russian advances, despite criticism from humanitarian organizations denouncing the damage these devices cause to civilians. According to the Pentagon chief, in statements to the press during his official visit, Russia has changed its tactics and now prefers to use infantry soldiers instead of armored vehicles, which are very exposed to attacks from Javelin portable anti-tank missiles. In addition, these soldiers can be deployed more quickly and prepare the ground for the advance of the armored units.

The war, which marked its 1,000th day on Tuesday, is in a phase in which Russia has held the initiative for months. The Kremlin’s forces, far more numerous than the Ukrainian defenders — and now reinforced, according to Washington, by around 12,000 North Korean troops — are taking advantage of their greater numbers to push back the Ukrainian military in the eastern region of Donetsk, where Moscow launches frequent drone and missile attacks from inside Russia.

Mines with battery

Ukraine “has a need for things that can help slow down” these Russian infantry advances, Austin said. The country’s forces “have asked for this and so I think it’s a good idea,” the defense secretary added. He noted that the Ukrainian military already uses cruder, home-made antipersonnel mines to stop Russian troops. “The landmines that we would look to provide them would be landmines that are not persistent. We can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate. And that makes it far safer eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.” Non-persistent mines require batteries to detonate, which eventually renders them useless over time and prevents them from being detonated years later by a civilian passing by, even if they remain in the ground.

The United States, the retired general said, has given instructions on how to use this type of weaponry to ensure that “they do things responsibly, recording where they’re putting the mines.” Russia has used antipersonnel mines in Ukraine since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

Wednesday’s announcement came three days after Washington said that it had lifted what until then — despite the pleas of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy — had been its biggest red line: authorizing the use of its ATACMS missiles, with a range of more than 300 kilometers (186 miles), inside Russian territory, so that Ukraine can reach, among other targets, the sites from which enemy batteries fire their rockets. The American missiles were to be used, above all, in the Kursk area, in western Russia, to protect Ukrainian troops that have been occupying the region since the summer. Previously, the U.S. had authorized the use of HIMARS missiles, with a range of 80 kilometers (50 miles), against the Russian side of the border.

The Biden administration’s move was less about changing the course of the war than sending a stark warning to North Korean troops that they are vulnerable, and to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un not to send more forces into the conflict.

The lifting of restrictions is also intended to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position to negotiate a peace deal with Russia if it comes to that.

This last-minute rush to help Ukraine before Biden’s term ends and Trump takes office is motivated “because Biden and everyone else realizes that the president-elect could very well cut off all aid to Ukraine entirely [...] We don’t know for sure that he will do it, but it’s certainly one of the options on the table,” said Max Booth of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank in a virtual press conference. “It’s a race to provide every last cent of aid and give Ukraine as much as possible to allow them to hold out as long as possible.”

Trump promised during the presidential campaign to end the war by forcing the parties to sit down at the negotiating table within 24 hours and reach an agreement, although he has never specified how he would achieve this, or what that agreement would include. “If he is serious about negotiating an agreement that the Ukrainians can accept, instead of simply abandoning them and letting them be defeated — which would be a serious blow not only to the security of the United States, but to Trump’s own political prestige — the steps that are being taken will help him, because they increase the pressure on Putin and Ukraine’s negotiating capacity,” Booth noted.

The president-elect gave an early signal on Wednesday, announcing his nominee for NATO ambassador: his former acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, who served in that role for a few months in 2018. Whitaker has no foreign policy or defense experience, but he is a staunch Trump supporter, the quality the Republican most values. If confirmed, he is likely to focus his mission on pressuring member states to meet or exceed their military spending target of more than 2% of GDP, and insist that the United States, which spends 3.38% of its GDP on defense, bears a disproportionate responsibility within the alliance.

Vladimir Putin’s regime has reacted with fury to Biden’s policy changes. On Tuesday, it announced a change in its nuclear doctrine, which now allows the use of such weapons in the event of a conventional attack on its territory by a country backed by a nuclear power, in this case the United States. Washington and European countries suspended the operations of their embassies in Kyiv on Wednesday for fear of a major Russian airstrike.

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