France’s greenlight for Kiev strikes on internationally-recognized Russian territory will only hurt Ukraine and further escalate the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned on Saturday.
Her remarks followed a statement by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot. In an interview with the BBC, Barrot said that Paris does “not set and express red lines” on its support for Kiev, and that long-range strikes on Russian soil may be carried out by Ukraine “in the logics of self-defense.”
“This is not support for Ukraine, but rather it is a way to finish it off,” Zakharova told TASS, referring to Barrot’s statements.
The French minister did not confirm whether missiles from his country had already been used by Kiev for long-range strikes on Russia. When asked by the BBC whether his “no red lines” comment meant Paris could send French troops to fight alongside Ukrainians, he said he “does not discard any option.”
Barrot’s comments came mere days after Ukraine struck Russia’s Kursk and Bryansk regions with US-made ATACMS and British Storm Shadows. The attacks followed a reported decision by outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration to greenlight Kiev’s use of long-range US-supplied weaponry to hit areas Washington recognizes as Russia.
The Kremlin slammed the reported decision as a deliberate escalation of the conflict and as making the US and NATO direct participants. Earlier this week, Vladimir Putin said that the “regional” Ukraine conflict has now “assumed elements of a global nature,” and warned that further attacks with Western weapons would result in retaliatory strikes on targets of Moscow’s choosing.
In response, the Russian military on Thursday test-fired a new cutting-edge hypersonic ballistic missile, targeting a military industrial facility in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk (called Dnipro in Ukraine). The nuclear-capable missile, called the Oreshnik, cannot be intercepted by existing Western missile defense systems, and is capable of reaching targets across Europe within minutes, Sergey Karakayev, commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces, told TASS earlier this week. The new weapon will be mass produced and incorporated into Russia’s arsenal in the coming months.