Putin Warns West against Supplying Long-Range Missiles to Ukraine

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, June 5: Even as Ukraine said its forces were managing to push back against Moscow’s troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk, the Russian president Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that Russia would hit new targets if the West supplies Ukraine with long-range missiles.
His warning came hours after several explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital city of Kyiv. If Kyiv is provided with such missiles “we will draw the appropriate conclusions and use our arms… to strike targets we haven’t hit before,” Putin said. He did not specify which targets he meant.

Putin’s comments came after the United States last week announced that it would supply Ukraine with advanced missile systems. Ukrainian officials earlier on Sunday said Russian missiles hit railway infrastructure sites in the first such strikes on Kyiv since April 28.

Russia said it had destroyed tanks supplied to Ukraine by eastern European countries during the strikes. “High-precision, long-range missiles fired by the Russian Aerospace Forces on the outskirts of Kyiv destroyed T-72 tanks supplied by eastern European countries and other armoured vehicles that were in hangars,” Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

US President Joe Biden has nevertheless ruled out supplying Ukraine with systems that could reach as far as Russia, despite Kyiv’s repeated demands for such weapons.

Putin said there was “nothing new” in the weapons supplied by Washington to Kyiv, and that Ukrainian forces had at their disposal weapons “similar to Soviet- or Russian-made systems.” The range of the missiles did not “depend on the system itself, but on the missiles used,” the Russian leader said. “From what we know and understand today, they are systems using missiles with range of 45-70 kilometres.” Putin said the sole aim of the West supplying arms to Ukraine was “to prolong the conflict for as long as possible.”

Ukraine said its forces were managing to push back against Moscow’s troops in fierce fighting in Severodonetsk despite Russia “throwing all its power” into capturing the strategic eastern city. At least 11 civilians were reported killed in the Lugansk region where Severodonetsk is located, the nearby Donetsk region, and in the southern city of Mykolaiv.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has said his country’s military would fend off the Russian invasion in a video marking 100 days of Moscow’s all-out assault on its pro-democracy neighbour.

In the east of the country, the battle for control of Severodonetsk raged on. The city is the largest still in Ukrainian hands in the Lugansk region of the Donbas, where Russian forces have been advancing gradually after retreating or being beaten back from other parts of the country, including Kyiv.

Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said Russian forces had lost ground in the city and it was now “divided in two.” “The Russians were in control of about 70 percent of the city, but have been forced back over the past two days,” he said on Telegram. Russia’s army on Saturday claimed some Ukrainian military units were withdrawing from Severodonetsk, but Mayor Oleksandr Striuk said Ukrainian forces were fighting to retake the city.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, millions forced to flee and towns turned into rubble since Putin ordered an all-out assault on his pro-Western neighbour on February 24. Western powers have imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Russia and supplied arms to Ukraine, but divisions have emerged on how to react.

French President Emmanuel Macron said Putin had committed a “fundamental error” but that Russia should not be “humiliated” so that a diplomatic solution could be found. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba reacted Saturday by saying such calls “only humiliate France” and any country taking a similar position. “It is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place,” he said.

Despite diplomatic efforts, the conflict has raged in the south and east of the country. The press service of the Ukrainian president’s office on Sunday reported nine civilians killed in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions from shelling.

Apart from the human toll, the conflict has caused widespread damage to Ukraine’s cultural heritage. On Saturday, Ukrainian officials reported a large Orthodox wooden monastery, a popular pilgrim site, had burnt down and blamed Russia shelling. Moscow continues to prove “its inability to be part of the civilised world,” Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said in a statement. Russia’s defence ministry blamed “Ukrainian nationalists” for the blaze.

Russian troops now occupy a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, Ukraine said and Moscow has imposed a blockade on its Black Sea ports, sparking fears of a global food crisis. Ukraine and Russia are among the top wheat exporters in the world.