The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Tuesday that Ukrainian forces fired six U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles into Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, just days after the U.S. president eased restrictions on Kyiv’s use of American-made weapons in the now 1,000-day-old war.

Ukraine claimed it hit a military weapons depot in Bryansk in the middle of the night, though it didn’t specify what weapons it used. The Associated Press cited the Ukrainian General Staff as saying multiple explosions and detonations were heard in the targeted area. Moscow claimed Russian military forces shot down five ATACMS missiles, and damaged one more.

The developments came a day after Russian officials reacted furiously to Mr. Biden’s decision to allow Ukrainian forces greater use of American long-range missiles, saying Washington has explicitly ignored a warning from President Vladimir Putin not to do so.

One major question remains as the raging Russia-Ukraine war approaches the three-year mark: What, exactly, does Mr. Biden want Ukraine to achieve? His final move of consequence has been to allow Ukraine to fire further into Russia with U.S.-made weapons, just nine weeks ahead of Mr. Trump’s arrival in the White House.

National Security Correspondent Ben Wolfgang offers a deeper analysis, noting that Mr. Trump has vowed to end the war quickly and has said he will push for immediate cease-fire negotiations. Some fear he could use U.S. military aid as leverage to pressure Ukraine to accept a cease-fire deal, even one that cedes Ukrainian territory to Russia.

Mr. Biden’s decision to let Ukraine hit deeper inside Russia may allow the outgoing administration to retroactively say it gave Ukraine everything needed to win the war, setting up Democrats to blame Mr. Trump if Ukraine accepts less-than-ideal peace terms with Moscow.

China’s president warned Mr. Biden on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in Lima, Peru, over the weekend not to cross Beijing’s “red lines” regarding Taiwan and the communist system. “A new Cold War should not be fought and cannot be won,” and “containing China is unwise, unacceptable and bound to fail,” Mr. Xi was quoted as saying in Chinese state media.

The White House made no mention of Mr. Xi’s demands in its readout, merely calling the meeting “candid [and] constructive.” However, Mr. Biden did condemn the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to Russia and expressed deep concern over China’s continued support for Russia’s defense industrial base, according to the American version of the conversation.

The meeting played out amid speculation over how the incoming Trump administration may shift U.S. policy toward China. In 2018, Mr. Trump authorized the CIA to conduct a clandestine influence campaign designed to turn people in China against the communist government. National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz covered the Biden-Xi meeting, reporting that while Mr. Biden has rejected regime change as U.S. policy, China has made no secret of its goal of one day replacing the U.S. capitalist system with its brand of socialism as the global standard.

Mr. Trump confirmed Monday that he plans to ask the U.S. military to assist with a massive deportation effort of illegal immigrants, but it remains unclear whether he envisions U.S. troops acting as deportation officers with arrest powers or using them in a support role.

Trump officials previously signaled that they expected the second option. It’s also unclear whether Mr. Trump’s vision is for troops to speed up deportations at the southern border or as part of an effort to scour the interior of the country for illegal immigrants who have settled in communities far from the Mexican border.

In his first administration, Mr. Trump used an emergency declaration to commandeer part of the Pentagon budget to finance hundreds of miles of border wall between the U.S. and Mexico. Using troops at the border has plenty of precedent: Every president since George H.W. Bush has tapped the military to help with border enforcement. In recent years, the military role has been strictly limited to supporting operations such as tracking illegal border crossers or handling office tasks to free Border Patrol personnel to return to the field.

The Chinese aviation industry’s growth and expansion capacity are impressive, but the Chinese have not achieved this on their own, writes Carl O. Schuster, who adds that “Western commercial aircraft manufacturers outsourced some of their component production to China to save costs and trained Chinese engineers.”

“They didn’t realize they were selling their competitive advantage or were too shortsighted to care. Regardless, those skills are as important to China’s aviation industry advances as any knowledge stolen by espionage,” writes Mr. Schuster, a former director of operations at the U.S. Pacific Command Joint Intelligence Center.

“Gathering or developing the data and designs for weapons, airframes and systems is the first stage of the development process,” he writes, adding that “modern and future unmanned systems require various levels of artificial intelligence, a technology heavily dependent on advanced programming and computer engineers as well as scientists. It is clear that China has developed the human capital to do so, and its days of reverse engineering foreign systems are over.”

• Nov. 19 — A Conversation with Commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Adm. Samuel Paparo, Brookings Institution

• Nov. 19 — The End of UNRWA? Then What? — Gaza: The Human Toll, Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Nov. 20 — Venezuela: Policy Recommendations for a New Administration, Wilson Center

• Nov. 20 — Debriefing the U.S. Elections and their Implications for Europe, Atlantic Council

• Nov. 20 — Contemporary India: From Domestic Politics to Foreign Policy and Beyond, Hoover Institution at Stanford

• Nov. 21 — Strategic Challenges Facing the U.S.-South Korea Alliance, Hudson Institute

• Nov. 22-24 — Halifax International Security Forum

• Dec. 7 — 2024 Reagan National Defense Forum, Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute