In September, a bipartisan group of the U.S. Congress — with lobbying from Ukraine that included a personal visit by the co-founder of the infamous Azov Brigade, Mamuka Mamulashvili — pressed the Biden administration to hand over to Kiev the MQ-1C Gray Eagle Unmanned Aircraft Systems (the US Army version of the better known US Air Force Predator drone), according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which cited Congressional officials. The Gray Eagle drones can carry up to four HELLFIRE missiles, stay aloft more than 27 hours, and have a range of up to 4,600 km — providing Kiev with the option of striking far into Russia.
The WSJ reported yesterday that the Pentagon would refuse such drones, over concerns that providing them could escalate the Ukraine conflict. Their sources report the concern that such an escalation could “signal to Moscow that the US was providing weapons that could target positions inside Russia.”
Biden, at his press conference yesterday, defended himself against the charge that the US has provided too much weaponry to Ukraine: “[W]e’ve not given Ukraine a blank check. There’s a lot of things Ukraine wants that we didn’t do,” noting that Kiev had requested American aircraft to defend its skies. “I said, ‘No, we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to get into a third world war, taking on Russian aircraft and directly engage,’” he continued, adding that Washington had also refused certain long-range weapons “because I’m not looking for them to start bombing Russian territory.”
