Western weapons against Russia
Killed Russian civilians – Kremlin blames USA
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Moscow is outraged: Russians are dying in their own country because of the war. The Kremlin is blaming Washington for the first time because Ukraine is now allowed to use Western weapons on Russian territory. Security expert Mölling sees successes for Kiev for precisely this reason.
Russia has for the first time accused the US of being responsible for the deaths of women and children in Russia by supplying weapons to Ukraine. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukraine used weapons supplied by the US to carry out attacks in the border region of Belgorod last week. Statements by the US government giving the green light to such attacks amount to “a confession … to the murder of children and women in the Belgorod region,” she said.
“Fragments of HIMARS missiles will serve as direct evidence,” the spokeswoman announced, referring to this US weapon system. However, she did not show any missile fragments. Neither Ukraine nor the USA commented on this.
The accusation follows warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin that the West is playing with fire and risking a global conflict if it allows Ukraine to fire weapons it has supplied into Russian territory.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on May 31 that President Joe Biden had agreed that Ukraine could defend the Kharkiv region, which borders Belgorod, against Russian attacks with US weapons – even if the targets were on Russian territory. The German government then made a similar statement. However, the US still prohibits Ukraine from using US weapons for attacks deeper into Russia.
According to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Ukraine is allowed to attack military targets in Russia in its own defense under international law. “Ukraine has the right to self-defense,” he said at a press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson. This also includes attacks on legitimate military targets on the territory of the aggressor Russia.
Security expert sees direct success
Security expert Christian Mölling sees direct successes following the decision that Ukraine can also attack targets in Russia with Western weapons. The Kharkiv region can now at least be secured against what was so easy for Russia in the past: preparing and launching attacks in a protected area, says the research director of the German Council on Foreign Relations in the “Stern” podcast “Die Lage”.
“We can also see beyond the protection of Kiev that the approval of Western weapons to fire on Russian troops on Russian territory – I'm trying to be very precise – has almost immediately improved the situation and put the Ukrainian troops in the lead. So in quotation marks: That's how little is needed. And that is the effect of weapons, so to speak, if you simply allow Ukraine to get back in the lead relatively quickly.” Conversely, one must ask oneself where one is “still putting the brakes on” and therefore bears responsibility for the dead, wounded and broken infrastructure, said Mölling. The basic principle is that military targets can be attacked. Otherwise one creates “safe spaces for the aggressor, which is totally perverse”.
