US President Joe Biden has authorised Ukraine to launch limited strikes into Russia using US-made long-range missiles, in a big policy shift before the end of his White House term in January, two people familiar with the decision said.

The move by Biden comes in response to the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to support Russia in its war against Ukraine, and after a barrage of new strikes by Moscow on Ukrainian cities at the weekend.

Tuesday will mark the 1,000th day of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Biden has allowed Ukraine to use HIMARS — the American High Mobility Artillery Rocket System — to strike targets inside Russia.

But he has long resisted allowing Kyiv to launch strikes within Russia using US-made long-range missiles known as the Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, on the grounds that it could escalate tensions with Moscow. ATACMS missiles have a range of up to 300 kilometres, or 190 miles.

He is now dropping those objections more than two months before he leaves office to make way for Donald Trump. The Republican is sceptical of additional military aid to Ukraine and has vowed to bring a swift end to the war — without saying how exactly he would do it.

The White House declined to comment. The Pentagon declined to respond to a request for comment.

In a late-night address in Kyiv on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted media reports “talking about the fact that we have received permission” to use the ATACMS inside Russia, though he did not confirm Biden’s decision.

Zelenskyy has pleaded for months for the US and other western partners to lift restrictions placed on long-range weapons provided by them for use inside Russia.

He has argued that cross-border strikes with the American ATACMS, British Storm Shadow and French Scalp missiles were necessary to hit Moscow’s forces before they could launch new attacks on Ukrainian targets, including critical infrastructure.

“Two countries are against us, against Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said on Friday, referring to Russia and North Korea. “We would very much like to be granted the ability to use long-range weapons against military targets on Russia’s territory.”

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister, said the use of ATACMS missiles would allow Kyiv to set its sights on “high value targets” and “potentially disrupt Russian operations”.

“There are targets which can only be addressed by high payload missiles such as ATACMS or equivalent aerial missiles. This is, of course, a decision giving Ukraine troops a chance, though as with many previous decisions coming after a significant and extremely painful delay.”

Biden’s decision to allow the Ukrainians to use ATACMS missiles followed the deployment early last month of some 12,000 North Korean troops to Russia.

This was the first foray into the war by a foreign military and a major expansion of North Korea’s support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Pyongyang had previously provided Moscow with hundreds of ballistic missiles and millions of artillery shells. In exchange, Moscow has provided Pyongyang with military technologies to help with its missile programmes and money, a senior Ukrainian official said.

In recent weeks, Moscow has massed some 50,000 troops, including 10,000 North Korean soldiers, ahead of an anticipated offensive in Russia’s Kursk region to retake about 600 sq km of territory held by Ukrainian forces since their incursion in August.

The American ATACMS missiles are likely to be first used by Ukraine to target those Russian and North Korean forces in the Kursk region. 

A Ukrainian intelligence assessment shared with the Financial Times revealed that North Korea has supplied Russia with long-range rocket and artillery weapons, including 50 domestically made 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20 updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems.

Some of these weapons have been moved to the Kursk region for the planned assault involving North Korean troops.

“Even if limited to the Kursk region, ATACMS missiles put at risk high value Russian systems, assembly areas, logistics, command and control,” said Michael Kofman, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“They may enable Ukraine to hold on to Kursk for longer and raise the costs to North Korea for its involvement in the war.”

Bill Taylor, former US ambassador to Ukraine, said Biden’s decision makes “Ukraine stronger and increases the odds of a just end to the war”.

“The decision may also unlock British and French missiles. Possibly even German,” he added.

When asked about the escalatory risk from the US shift in policy, António Guterres, UN secretary-general, told reporters at the G20 in Rio de Janeiro: “We have a very consistent position regarding escalation in the Ukrainian war. We want peace . . . in line with the UN charter and international law.”

Russia has not yet responded to the move. In September, Vladimir Putin said any such US authorisation would mean “the direct involvement of Nato countries, the US, and the EU . . . It would mean they are at war with Russia — and if that’s the case, we will make the corresponding decisions.”

Russian military bloggers close to the Kremlin responded on Telegram with fury and frustration to the news.

Rybar, a channel with more than 1.3mn subscribers, said the threat of ATACMS missiles would force Russian command and control centres, air defences and airfields further from the front lines. 

Additional reporting by Henry Foy and Anastasia Stognei

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As a victorious Donald Trump brings “America first” ideology back to the White House, leaders across the Atlantic are confronting the reality of “Europe, alone”. They ought to be prepared: for eight years they have openly admitted the need for Europe to stand on its own two feet. Yet they still find themselves caught up short, like pupils having put off their homework to the last minute.

It is, however, clear what Europe’s goals must now be — and they are shared by members and non-members of the EU. Deny Russia’s Vladimir Putin the success in Ukraine that would encourage him to deepen the threat to their own freedom as liberal democracies. Achieve the carbon transition that will reduce the intertwined vulnerability of destabilising climate change and Europe’s energy dependency. Boost domestic innovation and investments to improve productivity so as not to be at the mercy of technology and growth from elsewhere.

While few put it this way, leaders know they must make Europe great again. But all the best intentions keep foundering on an inability, so far, to will the means to these ends. Too many good policy ideas — such as those in Enrico Letta’s and Mario Draghi’s recent reports — are met with a nod, then the question: but where is the money going to come from?

There is too much learnt helplessness here. Of course big questions have to be faced about the EU budget and both national and common borrowing. But even without a big change in EU budgeting, Europe — and the EU especially — has more resources available than it is keen to admit.

Start with Ukraine, which Europe must now be willing to fund fully on its own. If Ukraine loses Putin’s war of conquest, it is Europe’s security that is permanently weakened, and its geopolitical autonomy that is doomed. In its own interest, Europe must fill the hole left by a definitive end to US support.

For half a year, Europe and the outgoing Biden administration have worked to advance $50bn on future private profits derived from Russian state money immobilised in western financial institutions. They may get it across the line before power shifts in Washington, but it’s barely enough to get Ukraine through the winter. Much better would be to seize the full $300bn or so of Russian state assets.

This is in Europe’s hands. Most of it is held captive by EU sanctions in the Belgian securities depository Euroclear, with some in other European institutions (including in the UK). The legal debate has been exhausted, with at least two viable routes to seizure identified: one based on countermeasures against Russia’s breaches of international law, the other on the setting off of reciprocal claims (in this case Moscow’s undeniable and much greater financial compensation obligations to Ukraine).

It comes down to Europe’s political will. Western governments have repeatedly vowed to keep the reserves blocked until Moscow pays Kyiv what it owes; seizure and transfer would simply enforce that obligation promptly.

What about Europe’s own defence and investment needs? Politicians naturally want the private sector to fund as much as possible, and look to institutions such as the European Investment Bank to attract large chunks of private funds with thin morsels of public spending. They rarely mention that, whatever the financial engineering, private funds have to come from somewhere: real resources actually have to be taken away from their current uses if they are to fund new ones.

That is a challenge for a country such as the UK, whose long-standing current account deficit means new priorities must largely be funded by reallocated resources previously deployed domestically. But the EU has a big current account surplus. EU leaders cannot in good faith argue that resources are lacking when the bloc exported €450bn in surplus savings in the last four quarters, largely to the other G7 economies and offshore financial centres.

The point is not to target a smaller surplus. As Trump is about to find out, targeting a particular external balance is hard because it reflects domestic savings and investment choices. But EU leaders should be clear that the world in which a European economic transformation succeeds most easily is one in which the EU is no longer a surplus economy but rather deploys all its domestic resources, is relaxed about imports and graduates from an excessive reliance on export demand.

That’s a big mental shift, but one well suited to a mercantilist-in-chief hell-bent on rebalancing the global economy. The EU’s task is to make that rebalancing work in Europe’s interest.

martin.sandbu@ft.com

In the first few days after the reëlection of Donald Trump, one heard across the fruited plains and the canyons of the great cities a noisy welter of accusation, self-laceration, celebration, and rationalization. There were also conspicuous assurances of normalcy that went like this: The sun went down in the evening and came up in the morning. Democracy did not end or even falter; the election was democracy, after all. The once and future President would surely dispense with his frenzied campaign threats and get down to the mundane task of governing. Making America great yet again required sobriety and competence, and Trump and his councillors would undoubtedly recognize that obligation.

For the titans of business, the new Administration promised untold prosperity: regulation would ease, tax rates decline. Elon Musk would make government just as civil, generous, and “efficient” as his social-media platform, X. Jeff Bezos, having ordered the editorial board of his newspaper to spike its endorsement of Kamala Harris, selflessly tweeted “big congratulations” to Trump, on his “extraordinary political comeback.” Wall Street executives and Sand Hill Road philosophers exulted that the “mergers-and-acquisitions climate” would now bring opportunities beyond imagining. (How these opportunities might benefit the working class they presumably would clarify at a later date.)

Meanwhile, the President-elect convened his loyalists at Mar-a-Lago, where they went about putting together a White House staff and a Cabinet. Historically, this is a deliberative process that can, even with the noblest intentions, go horribly wrong. In “The Best and the Brightest,” David Halberstam wrote about an American tradition of mandarins in Washington as

an aristocracy come to power, convinced of its own disinterested quality, believing itself above both petty partisan interest and material greed. The suggestion that this also meant the holding and wielding of power was judged offensive by these same people, who preferred to view their role as service.

Halberstam’s larger subject was the aristocracy of Robert McNamara, Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, and all the other exceptional men of the Ivy League and corporate boardrooms who helped guide the country into the Vietnam War.

At least as a matter of rhetoric, Trump is uninterested in conventional notions of expertise (which smacks of élitism). Nor is he focussed on assembling a council of constructive disagreement, a team of rivals (which smacks of disloyalty). As his personnel choices rolled out in recent days, it became clear that they pointed wholly to his long-held priorities—and they are not the common good. The nominations of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., as Secretary of Health and Human Services, Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, and Tulsi Gabbard as the director of National Intelligence are the residue of Trump’s resentments and his thirst for retribution.

In Gaetz, who faces allegations (which he denies) of illegal drug use and having sex with an underage girl, Trump sees himself, a man wrongly judged, he insists, as liable for sexual abuse. In Kennedy, an anti-vax conspiracy theorist, he sees a vindication of his own suspicion of science and his wildly erratic handling of the Covid crisis. In Hegseth, who defends war criminals and lambastes “woke” generals, he sees vengeance against the military establishmentarians who called him unfit. In Gabbard, who finds the good in foreign dictators, he sees someone who might shape the work of the intelligence agencies to help justify ending U.S. support for Ukraine. In other words, Trump’s nominations—in their reckless endorsement of the dangerously unqualified—look like the most flagrant act of vindictive trolling since the rise of the Internet. But it is a trolling beyond mischief. All these appointees are meant to bolster Trump’s effort to lay waste to the officials and the institutions that he has come to despise or regard as threats to his power or person. These appointees are not intended to be his advisers. They are his shock troops.

Or could it be that the President-elect is out to reduce the country to the status of a global laughingstock? Until this spate of appointments, observers had long remarked that Trump had no sense of humor. Al Franken, late of the U.S. Senate and “Saturday Night Live,” is among those who have said that they have never heard Trump laugh. Smirk, perhaps, at the misfortune of others, but not laugh in the joyful sense.

Back in the days when Trump swanned about Manhattan as a caricature rich guy and gonif construction magnate, he was part of a metropolitan jokescape, up there in lights with John Gotti and Leona Helmsley. Spy, the satirical magazine of its time, fact-checked his finances (inflated) and his books (preposterous). Trump was not amused. His lawyers sent frequent letters to the editors, threatening litigation. He found himself in a similar mood, many years later, when Barack Obama, who had suffered Trump’s constant insinuations about his place of birth, took the occasion of the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner to rib the political aspirations of the host of “The Celebrity Apprentice.” Trump left the ballroom in a funk, nurturing, perhaps, an ominous resolve.

Trump has always been obsessed with dramas of dominance and submission, strength and weakness, who is laughing at whom. This is his lens for human relations generally, and particularly when it comes to politics, foreign and domestic. As long ago as January, 2016, Niraj Chokshi, then an enterprising reporter for the Washington Post, calculated the many times that Trump had pointed out that someone—Russia, China, OPEC, “the Persians,” “the mullahs”—was “laughing at us.” More recently, in this, his third Presidential campaign, Trump told a crowd at Mar-a-Lago, “November 5th is going to go down as the single most important day in the history of our country.” He added, “Right now, we’re not respected. Right now, our country is known as a joke. It’s a joke.”

Now Trump’s critics and an increasing number of his supporters are taking stock of his most disgraceful appointments—these men and women of perfect jawlines, dubious reputations, and rotten ideas. They wonder if this is not the ultimate joke, with national endangerment as its punch line. Dean Acheson, who helped Harry Truman design NATO and rebuild Europe under the Marshall Plan, titled his memoir “Present at the Creation.” Which of Donald Trump’s new advisers will line up to write the sequel? ♦