Reports of an imminent about-turn by the US to permit Ukraine to use long-distance missiles against targets inside Russia, could lead to an escalation of the war.
One Russian lawmaker has said the US is risking World War III with its decision to end the missile ban. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded to reports about the lifting of US weapons restrictions by saying ‘missiles speak for themselves.’ While, Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously mentioned that he would consider such a move by a NATO ally as a declaration of war.
A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, stated that President Joe Biden was further inflaming tensions with his decision to allow Kyiv to use US and EU long-range weapons against Russia.
‘It’s obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps in order to continue fuelling the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions.’ It is believed that if Ukraine begins firing missiles deep into Russian territory, this could scupper any attempts at a peace accord and plunge the region into another bitter and deeply violent winter.
EU opinion on long-range weapons for Ukraine divided
Meanwhile, some European leaders have expressed their support for the call from Washington to drop restrictions on Ukraine using long-range missiles supplied by Western allies. According to outgoing EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, ‘I’ve been saying once and again that Ukraine should be able to use the arms we provided to them in order to not only stop the arrows but also to be able to hit the archers.’
However, at a recent EU summit in Budapest, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni cautiously questioned whether Europe would be able to provide Ukraine with the necessary military, financial, and humanitarian aid if a Trump administration were to cut American funding to Ukraine’s war effort as he proposed before the US election.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been urging Europe for a long time to adopt Trump’s strategy aimed at quickly ending the conflict. His argument that Europe lacks a realistic strategy to achieve what it claims to want (a Ukrainian victory and the return of its territory) is a growing sentiment around Europe.
