The US decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range missiles against Russia has met with little understanding in Moscow. The Kremlin accuses outgoing US President Biden of adding fuel to the fire. MPs express themselves more dramatically.
Russia has accused US President Joe Biden of inflaming the conflict by allowing Ukraine to use more long-range weapons. If the decision is officially confirmed in Washington, it would lead to a “fundamentally new situation regarding US involvement in this conflict,” warned Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. It is “obvious” that the outgoing US government wants to “pour oil on the fire”.
Russian MPs also accused the USA of escalation. US President Joe Biden’s government risks a third world war if it allows Ukraine to use such US weapons to attack targets deep in Russia, said Russian MP Maria Butina. The Biden administration is trying to escalate the situation while it is still in power.
Butina emphasized that she has great hope that the new US President-elect Donald Trump will reverse this decision, if it has been made. Because it “seriously risks the start of a third world war, which is in no one’s interest,” Butina, who spent 15 months in prison in the United States for being an agent and is now a Duma deputy for the ruling United Russia party, told Reuters.
According to US government sources, the US has allowed Ukraine to use longer-range US missiles. Accordingly, the US government made the decision in response to the deployment of North Korean soldiers on the Russian side.
First deployed in Kursk Oblast?
Russian foreign policy expert Leonid Slutsky also warned of an escalation. “US missile strikes deep in Russian territory will inevitably lead to a major escalation that threatens to have far more serious consequences,” said the chairman of the State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee in an interview with Moscow’s state-run Tass news agency. If the information is confirmed, Slutsky said, then Russia will react in the strongest possible terms. This once again confirms that the USA is directly involved in the war in Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin warned in mid-September that Western approval of such a move would mean “the direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine,” given NATO’s military infrastructure and personnel in the targeting and firing of the missiles would have to be involved. In late October, Putin said that the Russian Defense Ministry was preparing for multiple response options.
Ukraine, on the other hand, sees the weapons as part of its “victory plan” in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, which will last 1,000 days this Tuesday. Kyiv has been demanding such clearance for months. According to US government circles, these are ATACMS missiles, which have a range of around 300 kilometers. The New York Times reported, citing US government circles, that the missiles would initially be used against Russian and North Korean soldiers in the Russian Kursk Oblast.
