Analysis: Too little, too late to decisively alter the course of this war

It has taken an election defeat in the US and the arrival of 10,000 North Koreans in Ukraine for Joe Biden to finally relent. After two years of asking, Ukraine's army has been given permission to use US long-range Atacms missiles to strike against targets inside Russia. The military and political consequences remain uncertain.

- Dan Sabbagh

Russia has been able to bomb targets across all of Ukraine throughout the war. On Sunday it attacked key sites across the country's power network, forcing Kyiv to implement national electricity rationing as a result of the damage caused. Some missiles were aimed as far west as Lviv and at sites near the border with Moldova, and an energy crisis is closer as a result.

Kyiv did not have a significant long-range missile programme before the full-scale Russian invasion and has been hamstrung by its western backers ever since.

The US, UK and France may have donated long-range missiles but they have only allowed them to be used against targets inside Ukraine's internationally recognised borders- meaning that key airfields, fuel depots, logistics sites and barracks in Russia had remained beyond the reach of Ukraine, except through drone attacks.

At the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro yesterday, Biden reiterated strong US support for Ukraine, without referring directly to the use of long-range missiles. But White House leaks to US media on Sunday night indicate that Biden, with two months of his presidency left to run, has given permission for Atacms missiles, which have a range of 190 miles, to be used inside Russia.

However, there is an apparent qualification: they must be used in relation to the battle in Kursk oblast. There Russia, with the help of North Korea, has massed about 50,000 troops and is aiming to snuff out Ukraine's three-month incursion.