KYIV, Ukraine — As Russian forces kept up their bombardment across Ukraine on Saturday, capturing the eastern outskirts of a key southern port city, the Kremlin warned the U.S. that it would consider convoys carrying weapons to Ukraine to be “legitimate targets.”
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Saturday that shipments of Western weapons to Ukraine would could be attacked by Russian forces, according to Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency. Western nations’ “thoughtless transfer” of portable air defense and antitank missile systems to Kyiv, Ryabkov said, demonstrated “the escalatory component of Washington’s policy.”
“We have warned the U.S. that the U.S.-orchestrated inundation of Ukraine with weapons from some countries is not just a dangerous move, but also an action that makes these convoys legitimate targets,” Ryabkov said. The Russian diplomat did not say whether Russian forces would target such convoys in Poland or Romania, NATO countries that border Ukraine.
