The Kremlin warned on Thursday that the shipment to Ukraine by Westerners of long-range weapons (more than 100 kilometers), capable of hitting deep into Russian territory, would lead to a dangerous worsening of the armed conflict between Kyiv and Moscow. The Ukrainians ask in particular for American ATACMS missiles, with a range of 300 km.
“It is potentially very dangerous, it would mean that the conflict would reach a new level that would not promise anything good for European security,” said the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov.
He mentioned the possible delivery of “weapons that can attack Russian territory” even if “Ukraine already has weapons that it uses to carry out attacks on Russian territory every day,” he added. . Dmitry Peskov reacted to comments by the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoli Antonov, who assured that Moscow would “destroy” any weapons delivered by Washington or NATO to Ukraine.
Ukrainian applications rejected so far
Ukraine believes that with long-range weapons it could “destroy the entire military infrastructure of the Russian army in the occupied territories, including Donbass” and end the war “probably in the autumn”, in the words of Mykhaïlo Podoliak, adviser to the presidency of Ukraine.
Since the start of the conflict, the West has refused to deliver long-range missiles to Kyiv, fearing it would lead to an escalation. Moscow, however, accused the Ukrainian military of carrying out drone strikes on annexed crimea and on targets in Russia hundreds of kilometers from the Ukrainian border, even in December against the Russian military airfield in Engels.
The remarks come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized Thursday Berlin’s reluctance to hand over heavy tankson the eve of a crucial meeting of the Ukrainian Contact Group in Ramstein, Germany, to coordinate continued aid to Kyiv.
Source: BFM TV
