KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned Thursday that if the United States supplies sophisticated air defense systems to Ukraine, those systems and any crew accompanying them would be a “legitimate target” for the Russian military, a blunt threat that quickly was rejected by Washington.
The exchange of statements reflects the rise of Russia-U.S. Tensions amid the fighting in Ukraine, which is now in its 10th month.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the United States had become an “effective party” in the war by providing Ukraine with weapons and training its troops. She added that if reports of US intentions to give Kyiv Patriot surface-to-air missile system prove true, it would be “another provocative move by the US.” and increases his involvement in the hostilities, “with possible consequences.”
“All weapon systems supplied to Ukraine, including the Patriot, along with the personnel serving them, were and will be legitimate priority targets for the Russian armed forces,” Zakharova said.
Asked about the Russian warning, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Gen. Pat Ryder responded that the United States “will not allow Russia’s comments to dictate the security assistance we provide to Ukraine.”
“I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that has brutally attacked its neighbor – in an illegal and unprovoked invasion, through a campaign that deliberately targets and kills innocent civilians and destroys civilian infrastructure – that they would choose to use words use such as ‘provocative’ to describe defense systems intended to save lives and protect civilians,” Ryder said.
U.S. officials said Tuesday that Washington was ready to approve sending a Patriot missile battery to Ukraine, finally agreeing to an urgent request from Ukrainian leaders desperate for more robust weapons to shoot down incoming Russian missiles. shoot, which have obscured much of the country’s vital infrastructure. An official announcement is expected soon.
Operating and maintaining a Patriot battery requires as many as 90 troops, and for months the United States has been reluctant to provide the complex systems because sending American forces to Ukraine to run them is a nonstarter for the administration of President Joe Biden.
Even without the presence of US service members to train the Ukrainians on the use of the system, concerns remain that the deployment of the missiles would provoke Russia or risk a fired projectile hitting Russia and further escalating the conflict .
Russia has repeatedly claimed that its forces have struck Western-supplied weapons in Ukraine, but these statements have been impossible to verify.
Ukraine has so far reacted cautiously to the reports.
Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, told reporters in Kyiv on Thursday that the delivery of such weapons “remains sensitive not only for Ukraine, but for our partners,” and that only President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov made an official announcement on such an agreement.
The White House and Pentagon leaders have consistently said that Ukraine with additional air defenses is a priority, and Patriot missiles have been under consideration for some time. As winter closed in and Russian bombing of civilian infrastructure escalated, officials said, the idea became a higher priority.
So far, the United States and other NATO allies have provided Ukraine with short- and medium-range air defense systems that can shoot down Russian planes and drones, but not ballistic and cruise missiles.
Ukraine’s electricity provider said Thursday that the country’s energy system has a “significant power deficit,” and that emergency shutdowns have been applied in several areas as temperatures hover around or below freezing.
State grid operator Ukrenergo warned in a statement on Facebook that damage to energy infrastructure from Russian attacks would be compounded by severe weather, including snow, ice and strong winds.
The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson was left completely without power after the Russian shelling, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the office of the Ukrainian president, who wrote on Telegram. He added that two people were killed in the attacks.
Heavy shelling of the city’s Korabelny district was still ongoing in the afternoon, and Russian shells hit 100 meters (meters) from the regional administration building, he said.
As part of the infrastructure attacks and power outages across the country, seven civilians were killed on Wednesday and Thursday and 19 injured, according to a report from the Ukrainian president’s office.
The head of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, Pavlo Kyrylenko, reported that Russian strikes the previous day had killed two civilians and wounded seven.
Kremlin-backed authorities in the region, which was illegally annexed by Moscow in September, announced that Russia had taken control of 80% of the town of Marinka, seen as critical to Ukraine’s hopes of taking the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk to withdraw
The Moscow-installed mayor of Donetsk, Aleksei Kulemzin, said on Thursday that the city center had been hit by the “most massive strike” since the area came under the control of Russian-backed separatists in 2014.
Writing on Telegram, Kulemzin said 40 Ukrainian rockets hit Donetsk Donetsk on Thursday morning, noting that multistory residential buildings were hit and that fires broke out in a hospital and a university campus.
Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces shelled Russia’s western Kursk province, regional governor Roman Starovoyt said. Six shells hit a farm in the Belovsky district of the province, which borders Ukraine’s Sumy province. There were no casualties, Starovoyt wrote on Telegram.
– The European Union said it approved a new package of sanctions to increase pressure on Russia for war. The package was approved after days of deliberations during a meeting of ambassadors from the 27-nation bloc.
– Russia has continued to build up its military presence in Belarus, a senior Ukrainian military official said. According to Brig. General Oleksiy Hromov, Russian units “undertake training and combat coordination” in Belarus, with the Kremlin using Belarusian officers in training sites to improve the combat capability of existing units, as well as to train newly created units.
Speaking at a press briefing, Hromov said that the probability of a Russian offensive from Belarus “remains low”, but he stressed that the transfer of Russian weapons to Belarus is underway, including three hypersonic missile carriers, a set of tanks and a long – Range radar-recognition aircraft.
– The Russian Foreign Ministry said the Vatican has apologized for a statement Pope Francis made in a recent interview in which he described two Russian ethnic minorities – the Chechens and the Buryats – as “the most cruel” participants in the war in Ukraine.
At a briefing, Zakharova quoted from what she said was a message from the Vatican apologizing “to the Russian side” for the Pope’s comments. Zakharova praised the message, saying it showed the Vatican’s “ability to conduct dialogue and listen to interlocutors.” A Vatican spokesman would only say that there were diplomatic contacts on the matter.
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