Ukraine's requests to the West for permission to carry out strikes deep into Russian territory with Western weapons are blackmail, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, quoted by Reuters, writes BTA.
„This is blackmail, this is an attempt to pretend that the West wants to avoid excessive escalation, but in fact it is a ruse. The West does not want to avoid escalation, he said at a press conference.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said today that the involvement of the United States in the Ukrainian invasion of Russia's Kursk region is an “obvious fact”.
Washington says it was not informed of Ukrainian plans to invade the Kursk region. The US also announced that it was not involved in the operation. Russia has said that Ukraine used Western weapons in Kursk, including British tanks and American missile systems. Kiev has confirmed that it used US HIMARS missiles to blow up bridges in Kursk.
V. “The New York Times” reported that the US and Britain provided Ukraine with satellite images and other information of the Kursk area in the days after the Ukrainian attack. According to the newspaper, the intelligence was intended to help Ukraine better monitor Russian reinforcements that could attack Ukrainian troops or disrupt their eventual withdrawal back into Ukraine.