WASHINGTON: United States President Joe Biden confirmed yesterday that Washington will not send to Ukraine long-range missile systems that can reach Russia, as Pentagon sources told the press and as requested by the Ukrainian authorities.
“We will not send missile systems to Ukraine that can reach Russia,” Biden told reporters upon returning to the White House after a weekend in Delaware.
US media reported that Washington was preparing to supply Kyiv with long-range multiple launch missile systems after Congress approved an additional $40 billion in aid to Ukraine.
For his part, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, described the US President’s decision not to supply Ukraine with such missile systems as “reasonable.”
He commented on his account on Telegram, according to the Russian news agency TASS: “Otherwise, if our cities are attacked, then the Russian armed forces must fulfill their promise to attack the centers where these criminal decisions are made.”
In the United States there were reactions against the decision. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called Biden’s decision “a betrayal of Ukraine and democracy itself.”
Graham added that Ukraine “is not asking for American soldiers, but rather advanced weapons to defend against Putin’s invasion. Apparently, the Biden administration was once again intimidated by Russian rhetoric.”
Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, told the United States last Saturday that Moscow would interpret the shipment of new Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) as an “escalation of the conflict” and a provocation. Then he said, “We have to carefully check this information.” At the moment we start from the statements of the Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, in which he confirmed that no decision has yet been taken in this regard,” he said.
And the United States had begun a public study of the possibility of sending this class of weapons in recent days, according to sources from the White House to CNN, with the delivery of MLRS, capable of reaching targets at a distance of about 300 kilometers.
The Ukrainian government has also ordered from the United States a second type of system: the M142 Himars, which is lighter, has a range of 70-150 kilometers, which is significantly higher than the batteries of the M777 howitzer, which are currently being delivered to the kyiv and have an effective range of no more than 40 kilometers.
The British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was clearly in favor of sending these materials, as long as they were to be used in purely defensive conditions, since there was a risk that the system would launch long-range missiles that could reach an area without Russian problems.
There is a danger that such weapons will be placed near the Russian borders and the Ukrainians will have the opportunity to attack Russian cities. For us, the situation would be unacceptable,” said Ambassador Antonov.
“We hope that common sense will prevail – the diplomat added in this sense – and that Washington will not adopt such a provocative decision, because the transfer of arms to Ukraine significantly increases the risks of an escalation of the conflict.”
In the context of this maximum tension, Ukrainian officials demanded more weapons from the West. Some allies avoid supplying needed arms for fear of escalation. Climbing, seriously? Russia is already using the heaviest non-nuclear weapons, burning people alive. Maybe it’s time to give us the MLRS,” tweeted Mikhailo Podolyak, Ukraine’s presidential adviser.
Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press
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