United States: The Kremlin has strongly disagreed with the White House’s decision to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-made long-range weapons for attacks inside Russia. This change in U.S. policy comes just two months before President Joe Biden’s term ends and is a major shift since Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Before now, the Biden administration had restricted the use of American supplied long-range arsenal in the Ukrainian theater of war but had authorized the use of the supplied U.S. High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems HIMARS to overrun targets outside Ukraine to defend the country.
As reported by the CNBC, the latest authorization comes after North Korean troops were sent to bolster Moscow’s efforts in the slowing fight while the external aggressor unleashed what Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as one of the biggest Russian attacks on his country over the weekend.
”It is clear that the old Washington administration plans further actions to prolong the escalation around this conflict,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier on Monday, as cited by Reuters.
“If such a decision was really formulated and communicated to the Kyiv regime, then, of course, this is a qualitatively new round of tension and a qualitatively new situation from the position of the US participation in this conflict,” he said in comments translated from Google news that appeared in the Ria Novosti.
Ukraine relies on its western partners for military and humanitarian assistance, arms — which NATO members have mainly delivered for protective utilization in Ukrainian territory due to concerns that further war intensification and Russian retribution might occur.
Assuming Putin’s statement of Sep 12, any decision on the part of NATO country that would sanction use of long-range weapons to target Russia would be interpreted by it as direct engagement in the conflict.
“The problem is not whether the Ukrainian regime is to be allowed to hit Russia with these weapons or not. The issue is about making a decision: NATO countries directly get involved in the military operations or not. If this decision is made, it will only entail a raw participation of NATO countries, no more, no less.