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Russia warns US long-range missile approval escalates Ukraine war
Biden’s shift in policy added an uncertain, new factor to the conflict on the eve of the 1,000-day milestone since Russia began its full-scale invasion in 2022, AP reported.
Washington is easing limits on what Ukraine can strike with its American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMs, US officials told The Associated Press on Sunday, after months of ruling out such a move over fears of escalating the conflict and bringing about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The scope of the new firing guidelines isn’t clear. But the change came after the US, South Korea and NATO said recently that North Korean troops are in Russia and apparently are being deployed to help Moscow drive Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk border region.
Russia also is slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region.
Peskov referred journalists to a statement made by President Vladimir Putin in September in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would significantly raise the stakes.
It would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically,” Putin said at the time. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”
Peskov said that Western countries supplying longer-range weapons also provide targeting services to Kiev. “This fundamentally changes the modality of their involvement in the conflict,” he said. Putin warned in June that Moscow could provide longer-range weapons to others to strike Western targets if NATO allowed Ukraine to use its allies’ arms to attack Russian territory. He also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.