KYIV, 14 Sep: Ukraine made a new call Saturday on the West to allow it to strike deeper into Russia after a meeting between U.S. and British leaders a day earlier produced no visible shift in their policy on the use of long-range weapons.
\n\u201cRussian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields, and military bases inside the Russian Federation,\u201d Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said Saturday. \u201cPermission to strike deep into Russia will speed up the solution.\u201d
\nThe renewed appeal came as Kyiv said Russia launched more drone and artillery attacks into Ukraine overnight.
\nUkrainian officials have repeatedly called on allies to greenlight the use of Western-provided long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. So far, the U.S. has allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia\u2019s border with Ukraine.
\nDiscussions on allowing long-range strikes were believed to be on the table when U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in Washington on Friday but no decision was announced immediately.
\nUkrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing the U.S. and other allies to allow his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites farther afield as Russia has stepped up assaults on Ukraine\u2019s electricity grid and utilities before winter.
\nHe did not directly comment on the meeting Saturday morning, but said that more than 70 Russian drones had been launched into Ukraine overnight. The Ukrainian air force later said that 76 Russian drones had been sighted, of which 72 were shot down.
\n\u201cWe need to boost our air defense and long-range capabilities to protect our people,\u201d Zelenskyy wrote on social media. \u201cWe are working on this with all of Ukraine\u2019s partners.\u201d
\nOther overnight attacks saw one person killed by Russian artillery fire as energy infrastructure was targeted in Ukraine\u2019s Sumy region. A 54-year-old driver was killed and seven more people were hospitalized, Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Energy said.
\nA KAB aerial bomb also fell on a garage complex in the eastern city of Kharkiv, said regional Gov. Ihor Terekhov. No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n
Moscow warns Western nations
\nMeanwhile, officials in Moscow have continued to make public statements warning that long-range strikes would provoke further escalation between Russia and the West. The remarks are in line with the narrative the Kremlin has promoted since early in the war, accusing NATO countries of de-facto participation in the conflict and threatening a response.
\nRussian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state news agency Tass on Saturday that the U.S. and British governments were pushing the conflict, which began with Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, toward \u201cpoorly controlled escalation.\u201d
\nBiden on Friday brushed off similar comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said on Thursday that allowing long-range strikes \u201cwould mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia.\u201d
\nAsked what he thought about Putin\u2019s threat, Biden answered, \u201cI don\u2019t think much about Vladimir Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n
POWs exchanged
\nRussian and Ukrainian officials also announced on Saturday a prisoner swap brokered by the United Arab Emirates. It included 206 prisoners on both sides, including Russians captured in Ukraine\u2019s incursion in the Kursk region.
\nThe swap is the eighth of its kind since the beginning of 2024, and puts the total number of POWs exchanged at 1,994. Previous exchanges were also brokered by the UAE.
\nBoth sides released images of soldiers traveling to meet friends and family, with Zelenskyy commenting, \u201cOur people are home.\u201d
\nElsewhere, Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said that 19 Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the country\u2019s Kursk and Belgo-rod regions. No casualties were reported. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, 14 Sep: Ukraine made a new call Saturday on the West to allow it to strike deeper into Russia after a meeting between U.S. and British leaders a day earlier produced no visible shift in their policy on the use of long-range weapons. \u201cRussian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields, and military bases inside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-248579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248579\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}