Joining me now on set is NBC News global security
reporter Dan Duluth.
Kelly O'Donnell, my colleague, is at the White House for
the latest.
Kelly, let's get to you quickly.
This is a notable shift in policy by the White
House,
and it comes amid critical,
a lot of pressure right now in the administration to
get on the same page as what NATO and America's
European allies have been saying.
That's right, Peter. And the original intent here was President
Biden and his administration wanted to be careful to provide
weapons,
but to not be so provocative that American weapons could
be used inside Russia,
perhaps drawing the US into a direct conflict with Russia.
That has been one of the principal ideas behind the
president's approach since the war in Ukraine began.
Now we're at a .2 plus years into the fighting
where what we see is that Ukraine has suffered dramatic
setbacks over the
just the relentless push from Russia.
And some of that is staged inside Russia and then
targeting Ukraine.
And so making this adjustment,
which as you pointed out,
is aligned with some of the thinking of European allies
who are also critically important in support for Ukraine,
would allow Ukraine to prevent those attacks by striking inside
Russia
at the bases or operation points where Russian soldiers and
forces are working on their own land but projecting
munitions into Ukraine. So that's the sort of scope that
we're talking about here.
This isn't about going to Moscow or a more aggressive
approach,
but trying to prevent damage by
attacking inside Russia where needed.
And Dan, let me bring you into this conversation.
Ben, you and I were talking in the break,
right? This is part of a pattern and it's one
that conservatives,
Republicans criticize the White House on here,
which is them sort of slow walking in the eyes
of these critics,
being reluctant before finally agreeing tanks,
fighter jets and beyond the White House recognizing they needed
to do more to help Ukraine sort of take the
handcuffs off.
That's right. And it's really,
you see friction now between the Ukrainian government and the
White House because of this pattern.
You often have Tony Blinken,
the Secretary of State, Bill Burns,
the CIA director, staking out the bolder,
more aggressive stance in those policy deliberations.
The end result is the White House and the president
come around.
But the Ukrainians will say,
look at the time lost,
look at the lives lost.
And now you have a fairly desperate situation there in
the north and they desperately feel they need to hit
Russian forces just over the border.
So that so specifically it is to try to keep
this in a narrow realm.
As we heard from Kelly there,
the desire is not to start targeting Moscow,
go nowhere near Vladimir Putin,
so to speak, in the Kremlin here,
but really to try to target these forces and other
launch points where this offensive is coming from.
That's right because the White House wants to send a
message to to Moscow like,
you know, we don't want a direct conflict with Russia.
That's right. But so these will be this is a
limited area around the border.
Having said that, Ukraine on its own with its drones
that they make themselves have been striking inside Russia repeatedly
and these kind of sabotage actions where they hit oil
facilities or they hear it hit an air base.
So those will continue. And of course
that's really angered Moscow. And Kelly,
what I'm struck by here is if we put this
into political terms quickly,
you got what's going on in Gaza with Israel.
You got what's going on between Russia and Ukraine as
in a lot of ways,
as it relates to the
president's foreign policy, his, I guess his future,
his fate is dependent on things out of his control.
What Vladimir Putin and Russia decides to do,
in effect what Benjamin Netanyahu is deciding to do.
There was only so much control this president has had.
But here's here's an opportunity where they're trying to at
least try to seize some control and do more.
As so often the case with the president,
outside events or other actors can dramatically affect the set
of cards that the president must play.
And that certainly is true here.
We've seen the resistance among lawmakers about supplying Ukraine,
as you were talking about delays that might be coming
from administration choices.
That's been coupled with the delays in getting funding for
Ukraine.
And it also comes at a time before the G7
summit,
which is coming up in Italy
in early June. And tomorrow,
tomorrow the Belgian Prime Minister,
of course, NATO is housed in Belgium,
will be here at the White House.
And it begins on kind of renewed sense of these
conversations with European partners about the US role in trying
to defend and protect Ukraine and help it in its
own operations against Russia without going beyond that.
And of course, politically for the president,
he separates the decisions he needs to make his commander
in chief.
But the overall politics are certainly being watched by voters
here at home who are weary of some of these
interventions.
And at the same time,
you also do see support for a sovereign democratic country
like Ukraine among some of the electorate.
So it's a hard needle to thread for the president.
And he's trying to maintain and show leadership that the
US can bring Europeans together and can he can be
a supportive partner when they sometimes take an early lead
on certain things. Yeah, all smart points there,
Kelly. Dan, I want to ask you one other question
on a separate topic,
is relating specifically to the defense intelligence community right now,
releasing new findings about debris from a missile attack that
was discovered inside Ukraine.
And the determination was made with,
as they describe it, describe it almost certainly that this
came from a North Korean missile.
This is a big revelation.
If it proves to be true,
it means that the Russian relationship with North Korea,
which we knew to be tight,
was even stronger than North Korea could be providing munitions
specifically to Russia right now.
How concerned is the US about this and,
and frankly, how concerned should we be about this pattern?
And it's the way it's going.
I think it's very concerning.
And the and the intelligence community has been warning now
for a while,
you have this deepening kind of alliance between
Russia, North Korea and most of all China.
And this is a case where you have North Korea
already helping Russia,
giving a lot of artillery ammunition.
And then in this case,
they're actually using North Korean ballistic missiles.
And they used the the DIA looked at photos,
publicly available photos, and they.
Yes. And they just show that,
you know, look, these missiles are clearly North Korean,
and they came to that conclusion.
So it's yet another example of this kind of what
the US considers this kind of nefarious network of of
authoritarian states all lining up against Ukraine and other democratic
countries. Yeah. Also revealing that Vladimir Putin needs the assistance
of other countries to have the munitions he needs to
continue this war now 2 1/2 years old.
Dan Deluce. Thank you, Kelly O'Donnell at the White House,
Cal, always good to see you.