- Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev warned the West that Russia was happy to escalate
- ‘No one can rule out the transition of the conflict to its final stage’, he said
- The US said that Ukraine could use American missiles to attack Russian soil
PUBLISHED: 03:40 EDT, 31 May 2024 | UPDATED: 06:19 EDT, 31 May 2024
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has given his strongest warning that the invasion in Ukraine may end up in a nuclear disaster, after US president Joe Biden lifted restrictions on Ukraine using American weapons for direct attacks on Russian soil.
Two US officials confirmed that the US has lifted the restrictions, after officials from the White House, the US military and the State Department spent weeks discussing Ukraine’s usage of the weapons behind closed doors.
Ukraine will only be allowed to use the weapons to defend the northeastern Kharkiv region, which is currently bearing witness to a drawn-out brawl for control of the region.
Russia was furious at the news of the US’ decision, launching strikes on the city of Kharkiv, the second-largest in Ukraine, that killed three people and wounded 23 others, including two children.
Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, also vowed that his nation would strike at such Western weapons in Ukraine or elsewhere if they are deployed from third countries.
‘This is not ‘military assistance’ at all, but participation in a war against us. And such actions of theirs may well become a casus belli,’ said Medvedev.
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‘No matter how much retired NATO farts chatter that Russia will never use non-strategic nuclear weapons against…Ukraine, and even more so in individual NATO countries, life is much worse than their frivolous reasoning,’ he said.
‘A few years ago, they insisted that Russia would not enter into an open military conflict with [Ukraine], so as not to quarrel with the West.’
This was a miscalculation as the current war shows.
‘The use of tactical nuclear weapons can also be miscalculated, although this would be a fatal mistake,’ said Medvedev, who was Russian president with his finger on the nuclear button from 2008 to 2012.
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‘After all, as the President of Russia rightly noted, European countries have a very high population density.
‘And for those enemy countries whose lands are further than the coverage area of tactical nuclear weapons, there is finally a strategic potential.
‘And this, alas, is not intimidation or a nuclear bluff.
‘The current military conflict with the West is developing according to the worst possible scenario.
‘There is a constant escalation in the power of applicable NATO weapons.
‘Therefore, today no one can rule out the transition of the conflict to its final stage.’
Zelensky’s office, meanwhile, praised Biden’s decision as something that would ‘significantly boost’ Ukraine’s fightback.
Spokesperson Sergiy Nykyforov said Ukraine had received ‘positive signals from diplomatic channels about the limited use of US-supplied weapons’ in the region bordering Kharkiv. ‘It will significantly boost our ability to counter Russian attempts to mass across the border,’ he added.
He gave the comments to a small group of media following an interview that Zelensky gave to British media, to clarify that some restrictions on the types of weapons Ukraine could use on Russian territory would remain, but without elaborating further.
The US, along with the rest of the West, had largely resisted Ukraine’s pleas to be given permission to use Western missiles on Russian targets, anxious that this would draw NATO too close to the conflict.
But ahead of a NATO meeting in Prague on Thursday, the bloc’s chief Jens Stoltenberg had said repeatedly that it was time for members to reconsider limits on strikes inside Russia.
French President Emmanuel Macron had also insisted this week that Ukraine be allowed to ‘neutralise’ bases in Russia used to launch strikes.
And today, Germanysuggested Ukraine could use weapons supplied by Western countries to defend itself against attacks launched from just inside Russia against the northern border region around the city of Kharkiv in accordance with international law.
Germany discussed with allies the fact that Russia has carried out strikes on the Kharkiv region from positions in the immediately adjacent Russian border area, a government spokesperson said in a statement.
‘We are jointly convinced that Ukraine has the right, guaranteed under international law, to defend itself against these attacks,’ the spokesperson said.
‘To do so, it can also use the weapons supplied for this purpose in accordance with its international legal obligations; including those supplied by us.’
As the West further deliberates the matter, Kharkiv police warned that residents could still be trapped underneath the rubble of buildings downed by the strikes.
‘A man and a woman were killed as a result of an enemy munition hitting a multi-storey residential building… The fourth and fifth floors of one of the building’s sections were completely destroyed,’ police said in a statement, adding that another munition killed a guard at a civilian production facility.
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As the West further deliberates the matter, Kharkiv police warned that residents could still be trapped underneath the rubble of buildings downed by the strikes
Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv is located just across the border from Russia’s Belgorod and regularly comes under attack from Russian missiles
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Regional Governor Oleg Synegubov noted in a Telegram post that an emergency medic was among the wounded, adding: ‘The enemy again used a double strike tactic, while medics, rescuers and law enforcement officers were already working on the spot.’
Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov said there had not been ‘a single military person, not a single military object’ present.
Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv is located just across the border from Russia’s Belgorod and regularly comes under attack from Russian missiles.
Russian strikes that hit a hardware superstore in the city last weekend killed 16 people.
On the other side of the border, in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, an oil depot was damaged in an aerial attack, its governor said Friday morning, noting that a major drone incursion elsewhere in the region had been repelled by air defences.
‘The situation is more serious in Temryuk district – the oil depot infrastructure there was damaged by an air strike. Three tanks with petroleum products were damaged and are on fire,’ Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram, adding some workers had been wounded.