Biden Against Ending Long-Range Weapons in Ukraine

“I spoke on the phone with the Chinese president. He said that he will not sell weapons to Russia. We will see,” the Ukrainian president continued. In a joint press conference with Zelensky on the sidelines of the G7 summit, Biden stressed: “It makes a lot of sense that Ukraine can eliminate or counter everything that comes across the border. As for long-range weapons, they have them and we haven't changed our position.” He had recently allowed Kiev to launch attacks.

Zelenskyj described the defense agreement between the US and Ukraine signed at the summit as an important step towards NATO membership for his country. The agreement “recognizes that the United States supports Ukraine's future membership in NATO and recognizes that our defense agreement is a bridge to Ukraine's NATO membership.”

The US and Ukraine recently signed a ten-year bilateral security agreement at the summit. The agreement commits Washington to training the Ukrainian military, providing defense equipment, joint exercises and cooperation in the defense sector – but not to the deployment of US military forces. Kiev has previously concluded bilateral agreements with Germany, France, Spain and Great Britain.

As expected, the agreement contained no commitments to deploy US forces to protect Ukraine. Biden has always categorically rejected this — despite recent pleas from French President Emmanuel Macron to send military trainers there. According to the US government, this is to ensure that Ukraine can continue to defend itself. The agreement does not make any commitment to supply specific weapons systems. The US government viewed the agreement with Kiev as a message to Moscow that it had pledged continued and long-term support for Ukraine.