Russian President, Vladimir Putinhas sought to dissuade NATO members from allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles to strike military targets on Russian territory. In other words, it wants to prevent kyiv from attacking positions used by Moscow to launch missiles at Ukraine’s cities and strategic infrastructure, especially power plants.
To this end, Putin said on television that “if this decision is taken, it will mean nothing other than the direct participation of NATO countries, the US and European countries in the war in Ukraine.” “And this will mean that NATO countries, the US and European countries,” he continued, “are fighting against Russia.”
Putin has claimed that such a decision will change “the very nature of the conflict,” a threat he has previously failed to follow through on. He has also said, “We will make the appropriate decisions based on the threats they pose to us.” The Russian autocrat then assessed that, in reality, NATO is not authorising Kiev to use these long-range missiles, whether the American ATACMS or the British Storm Shadow, because the Ukrainian army does not have the technical capacity to do so.
In May, the Kremlin chief used the same argument to prevent the use of Western weapons against targets on Russian territory. So, threatened European countries with “serious consequences” if they allowed itreferring to the fact that, normally, “these are States with small but densely populated territories.”
Putin’s statements are in line with those of his Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who has said that the West has long given Ukraine permission to attack Russian territory with long-range missiles. Lavrov believes that the visit to kyiv on Wednesday by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Minister David Lammy is a “staged” event.
One more threat
During the visit, Blinken and Lammy said that the authorization for the use of long-range missiles will be discussed by their respective heads of state at the meeting that both will hold tomorrow, Friday, in Washington. But they made one thing clear: “It is Putin who has escalated this week with the shipment of ballistic missiles from Iran.”
The new head of Ukrainian diplomacy expressed confidence that this authorization will be forthcoming, although it has not yet been given by Blinken and Lammy.
“I fully agree with the partners’ opinion on escalation and let me add that I remember very well when before any kind of decision on the supply of some new type of equipment or new batch of equipment (to Ukraine by the West) we also reviewed the issue of escalation,” he said. Andri Sibiga. “Still, decisions were made. We had enough will and strength in our partners to make those decisions. Thanks to close military cooperation, We can clearly say that we have crossed the line of this fear of escalation“.
Sibiga referred to the fact that over the past two and a half years of war, Western partners have repeatedly claimed to be afraid of escalation with Russia, first refusing or at least delaying the delivery of advanced tanks, fighters and long-range missiles to Ukraine, and then supplying the country with such weapons, without the Kremlin radically changing its position on them.
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