If Western weapons are used deep inside Russia, the consequences will affect both sides of the Atlantic, the ambassador has said
The US will be directly impacted if its plans to further escalate the Ukraine conflict come to fruition, the Russian ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, warned on Monday.
Antonov was commenting on the recent trip to the US by senior officials from Kiev, including Andrey Yermak, the chief of staff of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov. According to media reports, they presented the Americans with a list of targets in Russia that they want to attack with Western long-range weapons.
Kiev argues that the lack of permission by its weapons donors to conduct long-range strikes puts Ukrainian troops at a disadvantage on the front line. Moscow has warned that it would supply similar military capabilities to enemies of the West if these types of attacks ever happen. The potential escalation would not be limited to the European continent, Antonov warned.
“Washington’s idea of pitting Europe against Russia through the Ukrainian crisis will not pass,” he said. “The US will not be able to sit it out across the ocean if the current situation escalates into a global conflict.”
Moscow considers the Ukraine conflict to be a US-led proxy war against Russia in which Ukrainian soldiers are used as “cannon fodder.” No amount of military hardware donated to Kiev will allow it to prevail militarily, the ambassador said.
“The American ‘Ukraine project’ has brought destruction and entailed huge sacrifices of the Slavic people,” Antonov added. “There is no doubt that Russia will cope with the new challenge to its security and the goals and objectives of the special military operation will be fully implemented.”
Unlike the UK and France, which donated air-launched long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine, the US has delivered a small number of ground-launched ballistic weapons, which are easier to deploy close to the border through stealth. Kiev has used some of the ATACMS missiles to attack targets in Russia’s Crimea, which the US considers Ukrainian territory.
A Ukrainian MP visiting Washington told CNN that strikes deep inside Russia would be no different from striking Russian border areas, which the US government allowed Kiev to do in late May, because “both are Russian territory.”
American officials have made it clear to the Ukrainians that they would not get “another significant delivery of ATACMS due to the finite number in US inventories,” the network reported. Many of the targets chosen by Kiev are not even within ATACMS range, sources told CNN.
