On Tuesday, Moscow claimed that Ukrainian forces were planning to use Western-supplied missiles to strike targets inside Russia and the annexed peninsula of Crimea. Russia threatened “immediate retaliation,” said The Moscow Times.
It’s another redline, and Ukraine has crossed them all. This one is probably the one they will respond to.
“The leadership of Ukraine’s armed forces plan to strike Russian territory, including Crimea, with HIMARS and Storm Shadow missiles,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a meeting with military officials.
Shoigu warned of swift retaliation if the weapons were used to strike targets inside Russia or on the Black Sea territory. Moscow annexed the region in 2014.
“The use of these missiles outside the zone of the special military operation will mean the United States and Great Britain’s full involvement in the conflict and will entail immediate strikes on decision-making centers in Ukraine,” Shoigu said.
Moscow has accused Western countries of directly waging warfare against Russia by arming Ukraine.
In an interview with Germany’s Welt am Sonntag published on Sunday, Stoltenberg declared that “peace cannot mean freezing the conflict and accepting a deal that Russia dictates.” Stoltenberg added that “only Ukraine can define the conditions that are acceptable,” an explicit endorsement of Kiev’s vow to drive Russian forces back to pre-conflict borders and seize the Russian territory of Crimea.
“If NATO, through the mouth of Stoltenberg, once again declares that they are against freezing, as they say, the conflict in Ukraine, then they want to fight,” Lavrov told a press conference. “Well, let them fight; we are ready for this; we have long understood the goals of NATO in the situation around Ukraine, which have been formed for many years.”
Russia claims the offensive will end in weeks because they’ve lost 20,000 of the 40,000 to 50,000 they had trained for the offensive.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon claims they made an accounting error of $6.2 billion in military aid to Ukraine, $3.6 billion this year, and $2.6 billion last year. They allegedly shorted Ukraine and plan to send the $6.2 billion to Ukraine instead of keeping it.