Thursday Briefing

Smoke from a Russian attack on industrial buildings in Kharkiv, Ukraine, this month.Credit…Finbarr O’Reilly for The New York Times

Pressure grows to allow attacks on Russia with U.S. weapons

Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested yesterday that the Biden administration could be open to tolerating strikes by the Ukrainian military inside Russia using American-made weapons. He said that the U.S., which has so far opposed such attacks, would “adapt and adjust” its stance based on battlefield conditions.

Several European leaders — including Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO, and Emmanuel Macron, the president of France — have called on President Biden to remove these limits on Ukraine.

Blinken made his remarks in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, the first stop in a trip aimed at showing U.S. support for nations facing a hostile Russia.

In the U.S., a plant still under construction in Texas will soon turn out 30,000 artillery shells each month for the 155-millimeter howitzers that have become crucial to Kyiv’s war effort, roughly doubling current U.S. output. Here’s a look inside.