Russian President Vladimir Putin assured on Wednesday that the long-range missiles supplied by the United States to Ukraine will only prolong this country’s agony, and that Kiev believes they could help accelerate the stalling counteroffensive.
On Tuesday, Washington announced that it had secretly supplied the Ukrainian army with ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) missiles with a range of 165 kilometers so that it could reach Russian bases.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later announced the “successful” use of these weapons for the first time. At the same time, the special forces claimed attacks on Russian airfields in occupied territory on the same day.
In response, Putin opined that sending these missiles, which Kiev had been requesting for several months, would not change the course of the war, again claiming that the Ukrainian army had suffered heavy losses in its counter-offensive against Russian defenses .
‘The fundamental thing is that [os mísseis ATACMS] they will not radically change the situation on the contact line, that is impossible,” the Russian president said at a press conference in Beijing, in the final part of his visit to China.
“It doesn’t mean anything good for Ukraine. The agony will be prolonged,” he added, as Washington has made “a grave mistake.”
From his perspective, the delivery of ATACMS to Ukraine shows “that the United States is increasingly involved in this conflict.”
Russian Defense Minister Serguei Shoigu, in turn, stated that Western deliveries to Kiev of missiles, armored vehicles and F-16 aircraft, in this case for next year, will lead Russia to “strengthen its western borders.”
Ukraine, which forced Moscow to withdraw on the ground several times in 2022, launched a counter-offensive in June to regain 20% of its territory controlled by the Russian army and local Russian-speaking militias and annexed by Moscow in the meantime.
Kiev guarantees that its forces will continue to advance, but with slow progress due to Western hesitation in supplying new weapons.
At the same time, the Russian army carried out its own offensives towards Kupiansk (northeast), and since October 10 towards Avdivka (east), which they are trying to encircle.
Avdivka is located 13 kilometers north of Donetsk, the capital of these regions controlled by local separatists and Russian forces. About 1,600 civilians still live in this city, which had a population of 30,000 before the military invasion of February 2022.
The Russian military offensive on Ukrainian territory, launched on February 24 last year, plunged Europe into what is considered the worst security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
Ukraine’s Western allies have supplied weapons to Kiev and approved successive sanctions packages against Russian interests to try to reduce Moscow’s ability to finance the war effort.
Source: DN
