MOSCOW: Russia warned on Thursday that it could strike British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian attacks on targets inside Russia using long-range British cruise missiles. The warning, delivered by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova at a news briefing in Moscow, has been made before but without such rhetorical force or urgency. Zakharova said that London was just "one step away" from becoming legally complicit - in Moscow's eyes - for what she called "terrorism" against Russian civilians and warned of "inevitable catastrophic consequences" unless Britain changed course.
Her reference to "terrorism" was related to the use of the Franco-British Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles by Ukraine to strike targets inside Russia or targets on territory in eastern Ukraine, which Russia claims as its own. "We have repeatedly warned that any British military installations and equipment in Ukraine and beyond its borders could be targeted in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory carried out using British weapons," said Zakharova.
