Kirby on the Ukraine-Russia War: The Strikes Request Are Limited to the Kharkiv Region

EXCERPT:

KIRBY: “We’ve been concerned about escalation since the very beginning of this war. And those concerns remain valid. The president has said he does not want to be responsible for starting World War III. We're not looking for a conflict with Russia, another nuclear power. That said, around the middle of May, the Ukrainians, faced with an incredible amount of pressure on Kharkiv, that town to the -- in the north of Ukraine, not -- not far from the Russian border, they asked for some limited permission to use U.S. supplied weapons against imminent threats just across the border. So, we’re talking about military and placements, gun positions, that kind of thing, logistic staging bases, that the Russians were using to create some sort of buffer zones so that they could continue to pound Kharkiv. The president looked at that, talked to the interagency team, made sure he had -- understood all the ramifications of the request and then approved it. It is limited to the Kharkiv region, and it is limited with respect to the kinds of targets they can hit and how far back they can go.”