Western nations “continue to play with fire,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing on Wednesday. She was commenting on reported attempts by London and Paris to convince Washington to allow Kiev to fire Western-supplied missiles deep into Russia.
Last week, The Telegraph reported that the UK and France were seeking US permission to greenlight strikes involving Storm Shadow/Scalp cruise missiles before President-elect Donald Trump’s January inauguration.
“If the Kiev regime gets permission for the aforementioned strikes, we will treat it as NATO de-facto entering a direct conflict with Russia,” Zakharova said. “A response to the use of Western long-range weapons against the territory of our nation would be imminent and devastating.”
Moscow has stated that it believes longer-range Western-supplied weapons cannot be operated by Ukrainian forces on their own. These weapons systems require the presence of NATO specialists as well as intelligence data obtained through the bloc’s satellite systems, Russian officials have said on several occasions.
Last week, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Moscow would consider any such strikes a sign that NATO is openly joining the conflict. “If such weapons are used, that would mean that not just Ukraine but the NATO nations are openly at war with Russia,” he told Rossiya Segodnya at the time.
Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered changes to the nation’s nuclear doctrine that listed attacks by a non-nuclear state supported by a nuclear power as justification for a nuclear response on Russia’s part.
On Wednesday, Zakharova also said that Kiev could try to pass the Western-supplied missiles off as having been produced in Ukraine so that they could be used in strikes against Russia. Such “bloody cheating” would not be possible without the approval of Kiev’s Western backers, she added.
Zakharova’s words came just a day after former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson claimed in an interview with GB News that London could send troops to Ukraine to prevent Kiev’s defeat, particularly if military aid from Washington wanes during Trump’s upcoming presidential tenure.
Russia has stated that it has no plans to attack NATO or any member states, but also warned that the bloc’s growing involvement in the conflict risks a direct clash between NATO and Moscow.