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Russia has signaled to the United States and its allies for weeks that if they give Ukraine permission to strike Russian territory with missiles supplied by the West, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation.
President Vladimir Putin said today that Russia's defense ministry was preparing to respond if the United States and its NATO allies help Ukraine hit Russia with long-range Western missiles.
Russia has signaled to the United States and its allies for weeks that if they give Ukraine permission to strike Russian territory with missiles supplied by the West, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation.
Putin said on September 12 that Western approval of such a step would mean "the direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine."
Putin also stated that it was too early to say exactly how Russia would react to such a move, but that Moscow would have to respond accordingly and various options were being considered.
With Russia advancing at its fastest pace in eastern Ukraine since the first months of the invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has pleaded with the West to allow Kiev to fire deep into Russia with Western missiles.
The blow of Russia
The United States has not said publicly whether it will allow Ukraine to strike Russia, but some American officials are deeply skeptical that doing so would make a significant difference in the war.
Ukrainian forces already strike deep into Russia regularly with long-range drones.
They also took control of the coal mining town of Selydove in Ukraine's Donetsk region just over a week after storming the town, according to pro-Russian war analysts.
Putin sees the war as a battle between Russia and the declining West, which he says ignored Russia's interests after the Soviet collapse in 1991.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Putin launched an imperial-style war against its smaller neighbor and have repeatedly said that if Russia wins the war, then autocratic countries around the world will be emboldened.
Just weeks before the US presidential election, Putin changed Russia's nuclear doctrine in what the Kremlin said was an effort to signal Russian concern over Western discussions of missile strikes from Ukraine.
Asked if the West had heeded Russia's warnings, Putin told Zarubin: "I hope they have. Because, of course, we will have to make some decisions for ourselves as well."
Putin said that only NATO officers would be able to fire such weapons into Russia and that they would have to use Western satellite data to target the weapons, so the question is really "whether they will allow themselves to strike deep into Russian territory or not."
US officials say the United States is not seeking to escalate the conflict.
How a new US president will approach the war is unclear: former US President Donald Trump has said he will end the war in Ukraine, while Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris says it will continue to support Ukraine./ Adapted "Pamphlet", taken from "Reuters"
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