NEW YORK, November 19. /TASS/. Washington's permission for Kiev to attack deep into Russia won't change the course of hostilities in the special military operation zone due to a lack of trained personnel, Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, said.

"The biggest obstacle Ukraine faces is a lack of trained and ready personnel, a challenge that neither the United States nor its European allies can solve and that all the weapons in the world won’t overcome," the Associated Press quoted the expert as saying.

According to Kavanagh, the decision to allow attacks on Russian territory won’t change the course of hostilities in the special military operation zone as Ukraine has no significant stockpiles of ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles, "and it won’t receive [the missiles] because the United States’ own supplies are limited."

The New York Times reported on November 17, citing sources, that US President Joe Biden had authorized the use of US-supplied ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles for strikes inside Russia. France’s Le Figaro newspaper, in turn, said that Paris and London had granted similar permission for the use of their SCALP and Storm Shadow missiles, respectively. The newspaper later removed the article from its website without explanation. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot stated that Paris had not changed its stance on strikes deep inside Russia. The German government confirmed that the United States had informed Berlin of the decision to authorize strikes inside Russia.

Top EU diplomat Josep Borrell confirmed that the US administration had lifted restrictions for US-supplied missiles to be used for strikes up to 300 kilometers inside Russia. He noted that the issue had been discussed at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting but the parties had failed to make a common decision to lift the restrictions, ruling that every member state would decide for itself.

The White House has not confirmed the administration’s permission to use ATACMS missiles to strike deep into Russia.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov recalled that Moscow’s position on the Ukrainian strikes by US missiles deep into Russian territory was clearly and unambiguously formulated by Russian President Vladimir Putin in September. According to him, this decision means a "qualitatively new round of escalation of tensions."