As Putin's army continues wreaking havoc in eastern Ukraine, however, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his military officials are demanding that the Biden administration temporarily lift the restriction so they can better defend their territory.
According to Reuters, a delegation of Ukrainian parliamentarians was in Washington, DC this week to meet with American officials. During a media roundtable, the quintet questioned why the United States had continued to uphold the policy.
"It's like if somebody were to attack Washington, DC, from the Virginia state, and you say 'we're not going to hit Virginia for some reason'," delegation head David Arahamiya told reporters. "It's crazy. Military people, like generals, they don't understand. So they are pushing us as politicians, like stop [the policy] this is insane."
Also in attendance was Ukrainian member of parliament Oleksandra Ustinova, who warned that Kharkiv was at risk of becoming the next Mariupol, referring to the city that was destroyed earlier in the war.
"If we do not have permission to shoot Russian weapons sitting at the border right now, we have a huge possibility to lose large cities and the region because they [Russia] know about this restriction."
Meanwhile in Kyiv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US would remain steadfast in its decision."Ukraine has to make decisions for itself about how it's going to conduct this war, a war it's conducting in defense of its freedom, of its sovereignty, of its territorial integrity," he said, noting that, the US has "been clear about our own policy."
While some US politicians sided with Blinken, others were more open to the idea of letting Ukraine do as it pleases with American weapons.
Among them was Sen. Mike Rounds, who argued that, "if they were actually attacking and destroying civilian targets, it may be a different story, but in this particular case, it seems to me that there is no escalation in this. The escalation has already occurred on the part of the Russian army."
