The Biden administration is likely to offer cautious but unmistakable criticism of Ukraine’s offensive into Russia. Now on its third day, Ukraine’s offensive into areas of Russia’s Kursk oblast across from Ukraine’s northeastern border has caused havoc. Russia has so far failed to expel Ukrainian forces.

But the administration’s criticism will likely come via comments from top officials and leaks to favored journalists expressing doubt over the merit of the operation.

Why the likely coming criticism?

Put simply, because the administration pays overdue deference to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings that too much support for Ukrainian defensive action risks a direct NATO-Russia confrontation. As a result, the White House has repeatedly pressured Ukraine to avoid military actions inside Russia since the February 2022 start of Russia’s invasion. Via officials such as National Security Council spokesman John Kirby and others, the administration argues that these Ukrainian actions lack justifiable military purposes.

The Biden administration’s stance stands in stark contrast to the United Kingdom and other NATO allies, such as the Baltic states and Poland. They have encouraged Ukraine to disrupt Russian command centers and logistics nodes at long range. They are right to offer this advice, and the Biden administration is wrong to oppose it. Ukrainian action behind Russian lines serves a critical military interest in destroying high-value military targets such as fighter jets and bombers, degrading Russian supply lines, and boosting Ukrainian morale and weakening Russian morale.

Unfortunately, the administration’s timidity underlines its penchant for appeasement where adversaries challenge U.S. interests. Take the impotent American response to repeated Iranian-directed militia attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East, for example. Or consider the White House’s willingness to allow treaty defense ally the Philippines to suffer Chinese ramming attacks and destructive boarding operations within the former’s own exclusive economic zone.

The problem is that this appeasement only fuels Putin’s sense that he can dominate the escalation narrative in his favor. And as the Kremlin’s frustration with Ukraine’s incursion grows, it will direct increasing ire at Washington. It will want the White House to put pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government to withdraw his forces and avoid future incursions of this kind. Considering the morale and material-destructive benefits that this operation and others like it have accrued, Zelensky should obviously reject that pressure.

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Still, when the White House does speak up and Kirby starts responding to reporters skeptical of this criticism with his favorite “I’m really glad you asked that question” refrain, we’ll have another example of this administration’s penchant for timidity.

And another piece of evidence that President Joe Biden is less resolute in the face of Russian aggression than he likes to pretend.