The Kremlin has accused U.S. President Joe Biden of adding fuel to the fire and seeking to escalate the conflict in Ukraine by lifting restrictions on long-range weapons.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov’s comments on November 18 come after reports that Biden has granted Ukraine permission to use U.S. weapons to strike deeper into Russia.
The development comes after months of lobbying by Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for Western states to give Kyiv the green light to use donated weapons to their full potential to hit targets currently out of range. The United States, along with other NATO states, has to this point imposed a limit on the distance U.S.
missiles could strike into Russian territory. Peskov said a move to alter that limit, which has not been officially confirmed by Washington, would usher in a new round of tension and deepen the United State’s involvement in Russia’s war on Ukraine. "It's obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps in order to continue fueling the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions,” Peskov said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in September warned the West that Russia could respond with nuclear weapons if it was struck with conventional missiles, and that Moscow would consider any assault supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack. Russian parliamentarian Leonid Slutsky said such a move would lead to escalation. "U.
S. missile strikes deep into Russian te.
