Good news for Ukraine: Russia's military rearguard loses its impunity to attack

Yesterday, Ukraine received excellent news from four countries that are among its largest arms donors.

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Germany, the US, France, and the UK lift missile restrictions on Ukraine

This Monday, in comments made on WDR, the new German chancellor, centrist Friedrich Merz, stated the following (I'm posting here the English translation posted by Anton Gerashchenko):

There are no longer any range restrictions on weapons supplied to Ukraine, not from the British, not from the French, not from us, not from the Americans either. This means that Ukraine can now also defend itself by attacking military positions in Russia, for example.

It couldn't do that until some time ago, and with very few exceptions, it didn't do that until some time ago. Now it can. In jargon, we call this long-range fire, i.e., equipping Ukraine with weapons that attack military targets in the rear.

And that is the decisive qualitative difference in Ukraine's warfare. Russia attacks civilian targets absolutely ruthlessly, bombing cities, kindergartens, hospitals, and old people's homes. Ukraine does not do that.

And we attach great importance to keeping it that way. But, a country that can only defend itself against an attacker on its own territory is not defending itself adequately. And this defense of Ukraine is now also taking place against military infrastructure on Russian territory.

Merz confirmed this announcement in a Twitter message published yesterday at 2:54 p.m. CET:

We will do everything in our power to continue supporting Ukraine. This also means that there are no longer range restrictions on the weapons we supply. Ukraine can now also defend itself by attacking military positions in Russia.

The ranges of the missiles of those four countries

This announcement marks a substantial change in this war: Ukraine will now be able to defend itself against Russian attacks by targeting its launch sites, with no restrictions other than the range of the surface-to-surface missiles supplied by Germany (which could soon donate Taurus KEPD 350 missiles to Ukraine), the United States (MGM-140 ATACMS), France (SCALP-EG), and the United Kingdom (Storm Shadow). These are the maximum ranges of these missiles:

• Taurus KEPD 350: 500 km (could reach Moscow).
• SCALP-EG: 550 km (could reach beyond Moscow).
• MGM-140 ATACMS: 300 km (could reach Smolensk, Kaluga and Voronezh).
• Storm Shadow: 550 km (could reach beyond Moscow).

Until now, the restrictions imposed by those four countries have prevented Ukraine from effectively defending its territory, as Ukrainian forces were limited to the area of ​​Russia closest to the Ukrainian border. That's over.

A change brought about by Putin's attacks on Ukrainian civilians

It should be noted that the cause of this change has been the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, with his indiscriminate attacks on the Ukrainian civilian population, in a strategy of terror that represents a clear war crime under international law. Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said:

Over 900 attack drones launched against Ukraine in just three days, along with ballistic and cruise missiles. There is no military logic in this, but it is a clear political choice of Russia – the choice to keep waging war.

Let us remember that last weekend, Russia attacked 30 Ukrainian cities with nearly 300 attack drones and nearly 70 missiles launched at civilian targets, killing 12 people, including 3 children, and injuring more than 60 others. The gruesome images of these attacks appear to have reached Berlin, Washington DC, Paris and London, and have finally led the governments of Germany, the US, France and the UK to eliminate restrictions that should never have existed and were only imposed out of fear instilled by Russian threats, a fear that has ended up costing many Ukrainian civilian lives.

I'll end this article with a few minutes of music courtesy of the 19th Missile Brigade "Santa Barbara" of the Ukrainian Army showing images of the HIMARS launchers firing the MGM-140 ATACMS missiles, so that Russian soldiers can get an idea of ​​what's coming their way:

HIMARS and Tochka-U: precision & power.

📹: 19th Missile Brigade pic.twitter.com/TwttpHPobD

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) March 30, 2025

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Photo: Defense of Ukraine. An M-142 HIMARS missile launcher with a smile on its cockpit, in a photo released in October 2022.