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Ukraine made a new call Saturday on the West to allow it to strike deeper into Russia after a meeting between U.S. and British leaders a day earlier produced no visible shift in their policy on the use of long-range weapons.
“Russian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields, and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said Saturday. “Permission to strike deep into Russia will speed up the solution.”
The renewed appeal came as Kyiv said Russia launched more drone and artillery attacks into Ukraine overnight.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called on allies to greenlight the use of Western-provided long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. So far, the U.S. has allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.
Discussions on allowing long-range strikes were believed to be on the table when U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in Washington D.C. Friday but, no decision was announced immediately after the meeting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing the U.S. and other allies to allow his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites further afield as Russia has stepped up assaults on Ukraine’s electricity grid and utilities before winter.
He did not directly comment on the meeting Saturday morning, but said that more than 70 Russian drones had been launched into Ukraine overnight. The Ukrainian airforce later said that 76 Russian drones had been sighted, of which 72 were shot down.
“We need to boost our air defense and long-range capabilities to protect our people,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “We are working on this with all of Ukraine’s partners.”
Other overnight attacks saw one person killed by Russian artillery fire as energy infrastructure was targeted in Ukraine’s Sumy region. A 54-year-old driver was killed and seven more people were hospitalized, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said.
A KAB aerial bomb also fell on a garage complex in the eastern city of Kharkiv, said regional Gov. Ihor Terekhov. No injuries were reported.
Meanwhile, officials in Moscow have continued to make public statements warning that long-range strikes would provoke further escalation between Russia and the West. The remarks are in line with the narrative the Kremlin has promoted since early in the war, accusing NATO countries of de-facto participation in the conflict and threatening a response.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state news agency TASS Saturday that the U.S. and British governments were pushing the conflict, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, toward “poorly controlled escalation”.
Similar comments of Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, where he said that allowing long-range strikes “would mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia.” were brushed off by Biden Friday.
Asked what he thought about Putin’s threat, Biden answered, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”
Elsewhere, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 19 Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the country’s Kursk and Belgorod regions. No casualties were reported.
