Kremlin reacts to Trump’s stance on long-range strikes into Russia
US President-elect Donald Trump’s statement regarding Ukraine’s use of Western long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia is completely in line with Moscow’s stance on the matter, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.
Peskov was commenting on Trump’s sharp criticism this week of President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Kiev to conduct long-range strikes on Russian territory with US-supplied missiles.
“The statement itself completely coincides with our position,” Peskov told reporters. “In this case we have the same vision of the reasons for the escalation.” He added that Trump’s thinking on the matter “appeals” to Russia.
“It is obvious that Trump understands what exactly is escalating the situation around the conflict,” he said.
At the same time, the Russian presidential spokesman warned against “jumping ahead of ourselves” and predicting the actions of the incoming US administration.
“Let’s wait until the moment when the president-elect takes his post in the Oval Office,” he advised.
In an interview with Time magazine, which named him the 2024 Person of the Year, Trump stated that he disagrees “very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia,” asking rhetorically: “Why are we doing that?”
Trump said that missile strikes deep into Russia’s internationally recognized territory are “just escalating this war and making it worse,” and described such attacks as a “very big mistake.”
The US president-elect’s comments came a day after the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian forces had launched six US-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles towards an airfield in Rostov Region.
In response to Kiev’s attacks, Moscow hit a number of Ukraine’s key energy facilities overnight into Friday.
Russia has repeatedly warned that long-range strikes using foreign-made weapons would escalate the conflict and be seen as NATO’s direct participation in the hostilities.
In late November, Moscow used its new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile system for the first time, striking the Yuzhmash military plant in the Ukrainian city of Dnepr.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the time that if Ukraine’s attacks deep inside Russia continue, Moscow reserves the right “to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.
