Kyiv:
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Thursday that letting Ukraine use longer-range weapons to strike targets inside its country would put NATO “at war” with Russia.
The stark warning came as U.S. and British officials discussed kyiv’s demand to relax rules on firing Western weapons into Russia, more than two and a half years after Moscow invaded Ukraine. .
Meanwhile, Moscow also claimed to have reconquered part of the territory in the western Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces had advanced in recent weeks.
Putin spoke after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised that Washington would quickly review kyiv’s long-standing request for more leeway to use Western-supplied weapons to strike Russian targets.
“This would significantly change the very nature of the conflict,” Putin told a state television reporter.
“This would mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries would be at war with Russia,” he said.
“If this is the case, given the changing nature of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats we face.”
Speaking at a news conference in Warsaw on Thursday, Blinken said the United States “will adjust, we will adjust as necessary, including with respect to the means that Ukraine has to effectively defend itself against Russian aggression.
kyiv launched a shock incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region on August 6, advancing miles into Russian territory and seizing dozens of settlements.
But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that Moscow’s troops were fighting back.
The Ukrainian attack – the largest by a foreign army on Russian territory since World War II – caught Moscow off guard as its invasion enters its third year.
Russia insisted from the start that it would expel Ukrainian troops from the region.
But until now it appeared to be on the back foot, mounting a humanitarian response and evacuating around 150,000 people.
“Units of the ‘North’ group of troops liberated 10 settlements in two days,” the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram.
Speaking at a press conference in kyiv, Zelensky said that “the Russians have launched counter-offensive actions.”
He did not provide details on the extent of Russian operations, but said the incursion was “still proceeding according to our Ukrainian plan.”
The commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, said in late August that kyiv had seized 100 settlements and nearly 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) of Russian territory.
kyiv says it does not want to annex parts of Russia – as Moscow has done in eastern Ukraine – but hopes it can force its enemy to divert its troops and make territorial gains a bargaining chip in any negotiations .
kyiv wants more flexibility to strike Russian airfields and other military targets farther from the front lines, which it says are crucial to Moscow’s invasion.
Washington currently authorizes Ukraine to strike only Russian targets in occupied parts of Ukraine and certain Russian border regions directly linked to Moscow’s combat operations.
“The delay in this process is leading Russia to move these military targets deeper into Russia,” Zelensky said.
The Kremlin said Wednesday it would respond “appropriately” if restrictions were lifted.
President Joe Biden is expected to review the Ukrainian demands Friday in a White House meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Biden has been reluctant to take steps that risk triggering direct conflict between nuclear-armed Russia and the United States.
Speaking in Poland after a trip to kyiv, Blinken was also expected to discuss a call by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga for neighboring countries to help shoot down missiles over its western region.
Russia has increased its air attacks against Ukraine in recent weeks as part of the Kursk offensive, particularly targeting the country’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches.
Moscow’s forces are also stepping up pressure on the battlefield in the eastern Donetsk region, where the most intense fighting is taking place.
The International Committee of the Red Cross and Ukrainian officials said Thursday that three Ukrainian aid workers were killed by shelling in eastern Ukraine.
Zelensky said ICRC vehicles had been hit in the Donetsk region, calling it “another Russian war crime.”
The municipal administration of Pokrovsk, a key logistics center in the east, said Russia had cut off water supplies to the town, about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the front line.
Zelensky also said an Egypt-bound cargo ship carrying wheat was hit by a Russian missile in the Black Sea, shortly after leaving Ukrainian waters.