US President Joseph Biden is considering punishing China for supplying key technologies to Moscow and lifting restrictions on Ukraine's use of American missiles to attack targets in Russia.
The Washington Post writes about this.
The fact that such steps have begun to be considered now indicates the White House’s concern regarding the situation at the front in Ukraine.
Now watching
When US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv, he learned about the Russian offensive in the Kharkov region. This bothered him so much that he called on the White House to reconsider the ban on Ukraine's use of American missiles on Russian territory.
China's help for the Russian Federation
The topic of sanctions against China is quite sensitive, because both countries are trying to stabilize their relations. But U.S. officials are concerned that Beijing, while formally honoring its promise not to supply arms to Moscow, has become the largest enabler of the Russian defense sector.
Senior analyst at the Carnegie China Center, which studies China's influence on world politics, Nathaniel Sher in his report analyzed customs data and found that China is the largest supplier to Russia of 50 high-priority dual-use goods.
Customs data also showed that China's share of Russian imports of these goods rose from 32% in 2021 to 89% last year.
According to Blinken, dual-use goods are used to produce more ammunition, tanks, armored vehicles, missiles. And all this despite the fact that China still does not supply real weapons.
According to the Secretary of State, China supplies about 70% of machine tools and 90% of microelectronics.
China is also providing satellite technology to Russia, reports the British foreign policy think tank Royal United Services Institute.
Russia is accumulating troops and equipment
American officials fear that Russia is amassing troops and equipment on the border for an offensive on Kharkov and other cities in eastern Ukraine. American artillery and short-range missiles could hit these targets. But the United States is still against such use of their weapons.
There is a chance that this could change as other NATO countries are also putting pressure on Biden to loosen arms controls. The loudest call came from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
According to him, the fact that Ukraine cannot be on Russian military targets on the territory of the Russian Federation reduces the ability of Ukrainian forces to defend themselves.
— The right to self-defense includes the right to strike legitimate military targets outside Ukraine, — Stoltenberg added during his speech in Sofia, Bulgaria.
The NATO Parliamentary Group also joined this call. Perhaps a new turning point for the war in Ukraine will come.
