President Donald Trump's change of position on continued US weapons supply to Ukraine has revived a dilemma his predecessor had to consider: whether to place limits on Kyiv's ability to carry out strikes deep inside Russia's territory.
Trump on Monday approved a plan to continue supplying US weapons to Ukraine, which will be financed by contributions from the EU and other NATO members. But he told reporters Tuesday that he is not considering providing long-range missiles to Ukraine and said that Kyiv "shouldn't target Moscow" with US weapons.
The range of western-supplied missiles is well short of the distance from the Ukraine-Russia border to Moscow. Former president Joe Biden's administration last year gave authorization to Kyiv to use western weapons against targets in Russian regions bordering northeast Ukraine and against military targets beyond the Russian-Ukrainian border. Other NATO members also have removed most restrictions on use of their weapons.
The Biden administration warned Kyiv against attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. But Ukraine used its own military drones to target Russia's sprawling oil infrastructure last year, causing some disruptions but barely affecting the exports of Russian crude and refined products.
Few such attacks have taken place this year, but Washington-based experts attribute that to a change in Ukrainian military tactics, which now target air fields, weapons depots and command centers instead of Russian energy infrastructure.
Trump on Monday said he would impose "secondary tariffs" on Russia — meaning penalties for countries buying Russian oil and other products — unless Moscow takes steps in the next 50 days to stop its war in Ukraine.
"At the end of 50 days, if we don't have a deal, it's going to be too bad," Trump said Tuesday. "The tariffs are going to go on and other sanctions."
The Kremlin has had a restrained reaction to Trump's threat, saying "we certainly need time to analyze what was said in Washington" and advising to wait for President Vladimir Putin to respond directly.
"We want to understand what the statement about '50 days' means," Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. "We previously heard of '24 hours' and '100 days'", Lavrov said, likely referencing Trump's vow to stop the fighting in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office, subsequently amended by the White House to a pledge to stop the war in Ukraine within 100 days into his second term.
The White House on 25 March announced that Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to implement the "energy ceasefire", but the Kremlin immediately attached new conditions to the agreement and continued attacks on civilian energy infrastructure in Ukraine.
Trump in late March promised to impose a 25pc "secondary tariff" on Russian oil sales if the energy ceasefire deal failed. On 27 May, he gave Putin a two week deadline to make progress in peace talks with Ukraine.
The Trump administration so far has refrained from imposing additional sanctions against Moscow and even exempted Russia from punitive tariffs imposed on nearly every US trading partner in April.
