Russian officials threatened Western nations with an unchecked escalation of war — including the potential use of nuclear weapons — and the all-out destruction of Kyiv, if Ukraine gets its allies’ permission to use long-range missiles to strike further into Russia.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov claimed that Western leaders had already decided whether to allow Ukraine’s use of long-range missiles and had informed Kyiv — forcing Moscow to respond with its own actions.
“The decision has been made, the carte blanche and all indulgences have been given [to Kyiv], so we are ready for everything,” Ryabkov said, state-owned RIA news agency reported.
“And we will react in a way that will not be pretty.”
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow already had the grounds to unleash its nuclear weapons on Ukraine as a result of its surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region last month.
But Medvedev, who is now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said that Moscow could also use some of its new, non-nuclear arsenals to wipe Kyiv off the map.
“And that would be it. A giant, gray, melted spot instead of ‘the mother of Russian cities,’” he wrote on Telegram.
The ominous threats came amid discussions between United States and Britain on whether to relax restrictions surrounding the use of Western supplied weapons.
At a foreign policy summit Friday in Washington, President Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed potentially giving Ukraine the green light to fire long-range Storm Shadow missiles supplied by Britain at targets deep in Russian territory.
The leaders, however, did not reach a decision on any policy changes regarding the weapons, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists are vital to achieving victory in the ongoing war with Russia.
On Saturday, Ukraine renewed its push for Western leaders to relax restrictions on the missile’s use.
“Russian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields, and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said. “Permission to strike deep into Russia will speed up the solution.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday that allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles supplied by NATO nations to strike further inside Russian territory would amount to the Western nations being “directly involved” in the war.
Meanwhile, Russia barraged Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with dozens of drones Saturday, according to officials.
Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses managed to shoot down 72 of the 76 Iranian Shahed drones launched in the overnight Russian attack, according to the Ukrainian air force.
There were no immediate reports of deaths, although authorities described damage to infrastructure across the country.
Russia also started “counteroffensive actions” in THE Kursk border region, which Ukrainian soldiers seized five weeks ago, Zelensky said.
The daring move was done partly to force Moscow to redirect its troops there from the Donetsk region in Eastern Ukraine, where the Russian army is threatening to overwhelm several of country’s defensive strongholds.
With Post wires.
