Kremlin Warns of ‘Appropriate’ Response if US Lifts Ban on Missile Strikes

The Kremlin on Wednesday, Sept. 11, said it would respond “appropriately” if the US lifts its restrictions on Ukraine using American-supplied missiles to strike targets inside Russia, after US President Joe Biden said he was “working that out.”

Asked what the Kremlin’s answer to the move would be, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “It will be appropriate,” adding that Russia’s offensive on Ukraine was itself a “response” to the West’s support for Kyiv.

“There is no need to expect any ‘particular’ response. The SVO [Special Military Operation] is the response to all these actions,” Peskov said, speaking at a press briefing.

He added that such actions by the West only reinforce Russia’s position on the necessity of its military operations.

“Every such decision made by the collective West and then imputed to Ukraine is an additional confirmation of the justification, necessity and lack of alternative to the SVO,” Kremlin’s spokesperson added.

Peskov suggested that the US has likely already decided to lift the restrictions on the use of ATACMS missiles by Ukraine to target Russia.

“We can assume with high probability that these decisions are already in place, and what we’re seeing now is an information campaign to formalize them,” he stated, as reported by Interfax.

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The comments came as US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and British Foreign Minister David Lammy arrived in Ukraine for a joint visit. Their trip follows reports that Washington is preparing to lift the ban on the use of American missiles for strikes on Russian territory.

In a rare joint trip, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the nine-hour train from Poland to Kyiv alongside Foreign Secretary David Lammy, whose two-month-old Labour government has vowed to keep up Britain’s role as a key defender of Ukraine.

The visit comes as President Volodymyr Zelensky ramps up his requests to the West to provide weapons with more firepower and fewer restrictions.

In late August, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov visited Washington, where he reportedly provided US officials with a list of targets in Russia that Ukraine hopes to hit using American ATACMS missiles.