Ukraine-Russia latest: Furious Moscow vows response if US missiles used as 1,000 days of war clocked
Ukraine crosses grim mark of 1,000 days of Russian invasion today
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Your support makes all the difference.A furious Russia has vowed to respond to president Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-supplied longer-range missiles, saying Washington is adding “fuel to the fire” of the war as it clocked its 1,000th day today.
“It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps, and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
Mr Peskov referred journalists to Vladimir Putin’s previous remarks where the Russian president said such a move “will mean Nato countries – the US and European countries – are at war with Russia”.
This comes as Kyiv crossed the grim mark of 1,000 days of war today since Russia’s full-scale invasion, with weary troops battling on numerous fronts, Ukrainian cities besieged by frequent drone and missile strikes, and officials preparing for Donald Trump to reclaim the White House in January.
Military losses have been catastrophic, although they remain closely guarded secrets. Public Western estimates based on intelligence reports vary widely, but most say hundreds of thousands have been killed or wounded on each side.
What is the Storm Shadow cruise missile? The British weapon Ukraine wants to hit Russia
The long-range missiles Ukraine could use to strike at Russia after Biden’s green light
Furious Kremlin – and Trump allies – attack Biden’s ‘escalation’ of Ukraine war
What does Biden's decision to allow Ukraine to use longer-range US weapons mean?
Photos: Navalny’s wife and Russian opposition leaders condemn Putin’s 1,000 days of war
24 hours in Ukraine: A single day shows the reality of life as war hits 1,000 days
The clock on her wall stopped almost as soon as the day began, its hands frozen by the Russian bomb that hit the dormitory serving as home for Ukrainians displaced by war.
It was 1.45am in an upstairs room in the eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Natalia Panasenko’s home for just shy of a year after the town she thinks of as her real home came under Russian occupation. The explosion blasted a door on top of her, smashed her refrigerator and television and shredded the flowers she’d just received for her 63rd birthday.
“The house was full of people and flowers. People were congratulating me ... and then there was nothing. Everything was mixed in the rubble,” she said. “I come from a place where the war is going on every day. We only just left there, and it seemed to be quieter here. And the war caught up with us again.”
24 hours in Ukraine: A single day shows the reality of life as war hits 1,000 days
The Associated Press fanned out across Ukraine to chronicle a typical 24 hours of life just as the country was about to mark 1,000 days since Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022
At last Biden is taking real steps to help Ukraine – but is it too little too late?
What took you so long, Joe?” President Biden’s belated decision to allow Ukrainian armed forces to deploy a key US-supplied missile system deeper into Russian territory will be a welcome boost to morale in Kyiv, as well as being of some material help.
It should also prompt the British and French to follow suit and to generally encourage other allies to boost their support for Ukraine.
However, it is painful to reflect on how much more effective this change in tactics would have been had the move been made, say, a year or two ago. In hindsight, President Vladimir Putin’s veiled threats about escalation proved to be empty – and now no one thinks he’s about to bomb New York, Paris or London in revenge for the West giving the Ukrainians more firepower.
As it is, in the dying days of the Biden administration, it seems unlikely to be the kind of “game changer” that President Zelensky and his long-suffering people have been virtually begging from the West since the earliest days of this conflict.
Biden is now taking real steps to help Ukraine – but is it too little too late?
Editorial: The US president sends a signal on his way out and although President-Elect Trump has a distaste for America’s involvement in the Ukraine war, that doesn’t mean he will bow down to Putin
How has Nato reacted to Biden’s clearance of missile to Kyiv strike Russia
Ukraine’s Nato allies have welcomed the green lighting move by Joe Biden to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-supplied longer-range missiles.
President Andrzej Duda of Poland, which borders Ukraine, praised the decision as a “very important, maybe even a breakthrough moment” in the war.
“In the recent days, we have seen the decisive intensification of Russian attacks on Ukraine, above all, those missile attacks where civilian objects are attacked, where people are killed, ordinary Ukrainians,” Mr Duda said.
Easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing,” said foreign minister Margus Tsahkna of Russian neighbor Estonia.
“We have been saying that from the beginning — that no restrictions must be put on the military support,” he told senior European Union diplomats in Brussels. “And we need to understand that situation is more serious (than) it was even maybe like a couple of months ago.”
But Slovakian prime minister Robert Fico, known for his pro-Russian views, described Biden’s decision as “an unprecedented escalation” that would prolong the war.
ATACMS: The US-made long-range missiles Ukraine could use to strike Russia after Biden’s green light
Joe Biden has sensationally granted Kyiv permission to use “long-range “ missiles to strike targets deep within Russia, despite Vladimir Putin describing such a move as an act of war.
The weapons are likely to be used in response to North Korea’s decision to send thousands of troops to Russia in support of President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and comes after months of pressure from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
He argued the US ban had made it impossible for Ukraine to try to stop Russian attacks on its cities and electrical grids.
We look closer at the weapons that could mark a turning point in the war.
ATACMS: Long-range missiles Ukraine could use to strike Russia after Biden decision
Should Putin be afraid of Kyiv using Army Tactical Missile System rockets?
Watch: Zelensky responds to US decision to allow missile strikes in Russia
Russian and Chinese foreign ministers discuss Ukraine at G20
Chinese and Russian foreign ministers discussed bilateral ties, the conflict in Ukraine, and the situation on the Korean peninsula on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Brazil, they said today.
“We are truly at an unprecedented stage in the development of our strategic relations of a comprehensive partnership,” Russia’s Sergei Lavrov told China’s Wang Yi, according to a post on the Russian foreign ministry’s Telegram channel.
Mr Wang said Beijing is willing to work with Russia to further strengthen bilateral “comprehensive strategic coordination”, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement.
The “two sides also exchanged views on the Ukraine crisis and the situation on the Korean Peninsula”, it added without providing further details.
China and Russia have held a series of bilateral meetings since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine 1,000 days ago. The war isolated Moscow from Kyiv’s Western allies, bringing waves of sanctions on its politicians and businesses, but pushed it closer to China.
Russia ready to normalise ties with US but will ‘not tango alone’, says Putin’s aide
Russia is ready to normalise its relations with the United States, but will not “tango alone”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told TASS state news agency in remarks published today.
“Russia, as our president has said, is open to normalisation,” TASS cited Mr Peskov, a close aide of Vladimir Putin, as saying. “But we cannot tango alone. And we are not going to do it.”
Full report: Furious Kremlin – and Trump allies – attack Biden’s ‘escalation’ of Ukraine war
Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-made long-range missiles is an “escalation” of the conflict, Moscow said on Monday as it warned use of the weapons would trigger a “tangible” response.
The Kremlin reacted with fury after the US president eased limits on what targets Kyiv can strike using the American-made Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS.
My colleague Alastair Jamieson has the full report:
Kremlin and Trump allies attack Biden’s ‘escalation’ of Ukraine war
Starmer promises to ‘double down’ as he faces pressure to follow suit with British weapons
Moscow warns the US over allowing Ukraine to hit Russian soil with longer-range weapons
The Kremlin warned that president Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with US-supplied longer-range missiles adds “fuel to the fire” of the war and would escalate international tensions even higher.
The Kremlin was swift in its condemnation. “It is obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps, and they have been talking about this, to continue adding fuel to the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions around this conflict,” spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
Mr Peskov claimed that Western countries supplying longer-range weapons also provide targeting services to Kyiv. “This fundamentally changes the modality of their involvement in the conflict,” he said.
Mr Peskov referred journalists to a statement from president Vladimir Putin in September in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would significantly raise the stakes. It would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically,” Mr Putin said at the time. “This will mean that Nato countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”
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