MOSCOW (Reuters) – The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia would roll out what it called “an appropriate response” if the United States allowed Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with long-range ATACMS missiles, a decision Moscow suspects has already been taken.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has repeatedly urged the West to let his forces use its long-range weapons to strike Russia, and U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that his administration was “working that out now” when asked if he would lift restrictions on Kyiv’s use of missiles such as ATACMs.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a daily briefing that it looked like Washington had already decided to allow Ukraine to use the weapons for long-range strikes inside Russia.
Moscow would have an “appropriate” response if that happened, he said, but added that “there is no need to expect some kind of response everywhere.”
“To all these actions, the SMO (special military operation) is the response,” said Peskov, using the Kremlin’s preferred term for the Ukraine conflict.
“Each of these decisions, taken by the collective West and then attributed to Ukraine, is an additional confirmation of the justification, necessity and inevitability of the SMO.”
Washington has previously been reluctant to supply Ukraine with long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia over fears such a move could escalate the 2-1/2-year-old conflict.
But sources told Reuters last week that the U.S. was close to an agreement to give Ukraine such weapons, but that Kyiv would need to wait several months as the U.S. works through technical issues ahead of any shipment.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Anastasia Teterevleva and Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Andrew Osborn)