While no announcement was made in the Ukrainian capital, the White House is looking at expanding the area inside Russia that Ukraine can hit with American and British-made weapons, officials told POLITICO.
Ukraine is pushing hard for the weapons ban to be dropped, arguing that it can’t defend itself against the rain of Russian missiles, bombs and drones without being able to hit the airfields and bases where those weapons are stored and launched. But Kyiv’s allies worry about crossing the Kremlin’s red lines and escalating the war.
The Kremlin is playing on those worries.
Further supplies of Western weapons to Ukraine are “fraught with uncontrolled escalation,” warned Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Wednesday.
However, Blinken noted that it was actually Russian leader Vladimir Putin who was escalating by expanding the strikes against Ukraine.
“We’ve seen Russia now pursue and indeed escalate its attacks inside Ukraine, on civilians, on energy infrastructure, as well as on the Ukrainian military that’s defending its country,’ Blinken said. “And we’ve now seen this action of Russia acquiring ballistic missiles from Iran, which will further empower their aggression in Ukraine. So if anyone is taking escalatory action, it would appear to be Mr Putin and Russia.”