Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has a lot to do on a good day, but he’s especially busy at the moment. The top two items on his list have been getting the Biden administration to lift restrictions on Kyiv’s use of U.S.-supplied weapons and preparing for a peace summit in Switzerland later this month.
The first was by far the most urgent. The Russian army has spent the year thus far pounding Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-most populous city after the capital, and unleashed a new front in the war last month by sending thousands of Russian troops across the border into northern Kharkiv. Several small villages and towns were captured by the Russians after Ukrainian forces, unable to construct fortified defensive lines due to incessant Russian bombing, were forced to retreat.
The Russian offensive was made easier by the fact that its troops were able to assemble on the other side of the Russia-Ukraine border relatively unscathed. Zelensky and the Ukrainian military command argued that Moscow was taking advantage of Washington’s “don’t strike in Russia” policy, in which Ukrainians were prohibited from using U.S. weapons against Russian targets inside Russia.
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