Ukraine said it received permission on Friday to use US-supplied weapons for limited strikes on Russian territory, as Washington moved into closer alignment on the issue with most of Kyiv’s European allies and drew angry warnings from Moscow.
“We got a message from the American side. This morning, I received a message from my military. I can’t tell you the details about it, I want to see what happens in practice,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a visit to Sweden.
“In any case, this is a step forward towards the goal that we discussed earlier. For Ukraine, this is a chance to protect our people who live near the border,” he added.
The White House is believed to have given Kyiv clearance to use US-supplied artillery systems and guided bombs to hit Russian military targets near the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine, which is facing heavy missile and ground attacks launched from just across the border.
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“Over the past few weeks, Ukraine came to us and asked for the authorisation to use weapons that were provided to defend against this aggression,” US secretary of state Antony Blinken said after a Nato meeting in Prague.
The request went to US president Joe Biden, who “approved use of our weapons for that purpose. Going forward, we’ll continue to be doing what we’ve been doing, which is, as necessary, adapt and adjust,” Mr Blinken added.
Unnamed US officials were quoted as saying that Ukraine had not received permission to hit targets deeper inside Russia with weapons such as the Atacms missile system, which can have a range of up to 300km. Kyiv is allowed to use its whole arsenal in occupied territory, including the strategic Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea.
“Russia proceeds from the fact that all long-range weapons used in [Ukraine] are already directly controlled by military personnel of Nato countries. This is not ‘military assistance’ at all, but participation in a war against us. And such actions of theirs may well become a casus belli,” said Dmitry Medvedev, a former president of Russia who is now deputy chairman of its security council.
He accused Nato countries of “a serious escalation” and warned that they would face “a response of such destructive force that the Alliance itself simply will not be able to resist being drawn into the conflict”.”
Repeating a threat that Russia might use nuclear missiles against Nato states, Mr Medvedev said that “this, alas, is no intimidation or nuclear bluff. The current military conflict with the West is developing according to the worst possible scenario… Therefore, today no one can exclude the transition of the conflict to its final stage”.
Mr Medvedev and other Russian officials have made similar threats at other stages of their country’s invasion of Ukraine, and Kyiv and many western capitals dismiss them as empty sabre-rattling.
“Self-defence is not escalation… Ukraine has the right, and the responsibility, to protect its people. And we have the right to help Ukraine uphold its right to self-defence,” said Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg.
“At every stage of this war Russia has complained, threatened and sabre-rattled… But we are not and we will not be deterred. Russia is the one attacking. Russia is the one escalating. Most recently by opening a new front in the Kharkiv region.”
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