On May 31, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the Biden administration’s decision to allow Ukraine to use Western weapons to hit targets in what Washington considers Russian territory.

This week, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his country's red lines in this regard, promising an “asymmetric response,” without providing specific details.

President Biden stopped Ukraine from using ballistic missiles. The attack will also be restricted to the Kharkov sector — allowing Kiev “to strike military targets, gun positions, as well as transshipment bases that Russia uses to create a kind of buffer zone,” as a White House official put it.

But as Americans often say, all options are on the table. Blinken succinctly stated on the sidelines of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Prague on May 31, “The hallmark of our engagement has been to adapt and adjust as necessary, to meet what’s actually going on on the battlefield, to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, when it needs it, to do that deliberately and effectively. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in response to what we’ve now seen in and around the Kharkov region.”

The key words are — “adapt and adjust as necessary.” They message that this isn’t a “stand alone” decision, but part of a process; nor is it limited for all time in geographical terms to Kharkov Region’s border with Russia.

Blinken ignored the Kremlin’s warnings but unmistakably hinted that this was just the beginning. The underlying logic is to keep increasing the costs for Russia as a potential deterrence to force it to bend when costs outweigh the........

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