Austin Appears To Indicate No Change In US Stance On LR Missile Use

Wires carrying comments from US officials at the Ukraine Contact Defense Group meeting at Ramstein airbase in Germany. Austin claims that 'Russia has moved its glide bombs back behind the range of ATACMS [US long-range missiles]. Austin: 'Ukraine has a pretty significant capability of its own to attack targets well beyond the range of Storm Shadows...Ukraine has drones and other things to attack targets in Russia."

• These comments would seem to indicate that the US has not changed its stance on not allowing Ukraine to use US-made long-range missiles against military targets in the Russian Federation despite increasingly vocal pleas from Kyiv amid massive Russian attacks on civilian targets and key infrastructure.
• Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. CQ Brown says that the US "will work very closely with Ukraine to defend at Pokrovsk area in the Donbas, which is the focal point of Russia's advance in the region.
• US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III says that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky 'did not discuss his plan for victory' at the Ramstein talks. Claims that 'this conflict will eventually be resolved at the negotiating table, but [it is] hard to tell when this time will come'.