RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — President Joe Biden made “a good decision” in allowing Ukraine to use weapons manufactured by the U.S. to strike inside Russia, France’s Emmanuel Macron said late Monday.
Macron said Biden’s new path was taken in response to Russia escalating the conflict with Ukraine by using soldiers from North Korea to serve alongside its forces.
“Russia is the only power that made an escalatory decision … it’s really this break that led to the U.S. decision,” the French president told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had earlier said the use of American weapons to attack targets in Russia constituted “a qualitatively new situation in terms of the involvement of the United States in this conflict.”
The Russian military has long been using foreign-made weapons, such as Iranian Shahed drones, to attack Ukraine.
Earlier this year, Macron said he was in favor of allowing Ukraine to strike military targets inside Russia, given Moscow was taking advantage of Western limitations on the use of donated missiles.
Reports emerged on Sunday that Biden’s outgoing U.S. administration had allowed Kyiv to use long-range ATACMS against Russia. President-elect Donald Trump has said he will seek a peace deal with Russia and has threatened to stop aid to Ukraine.
The U.K. is expected to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow missiles in the wake of the U.S. shifting its position. Germany has said it is sticking to its stance of not supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles.
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