Biden: No authorisation for Kyiv to strike Moscow with US weapons

US President Joe Biden has said that Washington is not authorising Kyiv to carry out long-range strikes with US-supplied weapons on locations far from the border with Ukraine, such as Moscow.

Unconfirmed reports emerged earlier in June that Ukraine had used US-supplied weapons to strike targets inside Russia for the first time, days after Washington allowed Kyiv to use some American weapons to strike inside Russia across the border from Kharkiv and Sumy oblasts, Kyiv Independent reports.

Ukraine said that the original ban on striking targets in Russia prevented an attack on Russian forces as they were building up before crossing the border into Kharkiv Oblast in the renewed Russian offensive that began on May 10.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on June 2 said the US should also lift the ban on long-range strikes in order to protect lives, arguing that airfields deep inside Russia are used to launch strikes on Ukraine.

Biden did not directly answer a question from ABC News on whether U.S.-supplied weapons have already been used to strike inside Russian territory.

Instead, he responded that the weapons are "authorized to be used in proximity to the border when they're being used on the other side of the border to attack specific targets in Ukraine."

"We're not authorizing strikes 200 miles into Russia and we're not authorizing strikes on Moscow, on the Kremlin," Biden said.

When asked whether the reaction of Russian President Vladimir Putin to the strikes inside Russia concerns him, Biden responded that he has known Putin "for over 40 years" and has been "concerned" by him for 40 years.

"He's a dictator, and he's struggling to make sure he holds his country together while still keeping this assault going," Biden said.

The US is authorising Ukrainian strikes "just across the border, where they're receiving significant fire from conventional weapons used by the Russians to go into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians."