Russian Foreign Minster Sergey Lavrov has reportedly cautioned US allies against supplying Ukraine with weapons that are capable of hitting Russian territories, warning such a move would be a “serious step towards unacceptable escalation”.
Lavrov’s remarks, which were reported by Russia’s TASS news agency, came after rumours of the United States and other Western allies who are in support of Kyiv are reported to have provided Ukraine with increasingly sophisticated weapons as Moscow presses ahead with its offensive in the country’s eastern Donbas region.
The Biden administration is preparing to step up the kind of weaponry that it is providing to the Ukraine by sending advanced, long-range rocket systems that are now highly in demand from Ukrainian officials, multiple officials say.
Senior Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have been pleading for weeks for the US and its allies to provide them with Multiple Launch Rocket System, or MLSR. The US made weapon systems can fire a barrage of rockets hundreds of kilometres, way further than any of the weapons Ukraine has- which the Ukrainians argue could be a game changer in the war with Russia.
Another system Ukraine has asked for is the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, known as HIMARS, a light wheeled system capable of firing many of the same types of ammunition as MLSR.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pleaded with US allies to provide Kyiv with heavy weapons, saying that his country needed stronger artillery as it was the “only” area in which they were outmatched by Moscow. “If you really care for Ukraine, [send] weapons, weapons and weapons again,” Kuleba said.
Source: Al Jazeera, CNN, Newsweek, The Guardian, image from Twitter