Latvian Foreign Minister Edgar Rinkevics says Ukraine should be allowed to strike military sites inside Russia as it fends off attacks on its critical infrastructure.
“We should allow Ukrainians to use weapons to target missile sites or airfields from where those operations are being launched,” Rinkevics said on November 29 in an interview while attending the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Bucharest. NATO allies, including the United States, have held back on sending weapons that can strike Russia.
Allies “should not fear” escalation, he added.
However, allies, including the US, have held back on sending weapons that can strike Russia, Bloomberg writes.
For the time being, NATO countries are refraining from supplying Ukraine with long-range missiles, so Ukraine only strikes Russia’s border areas and Russian-annexed territories.
NATO countries supply Ukraine with artillery equipment and the so-called smart projectiles of this equipment, multiple warhead rocket systems and anti-ship missiles. Their operating range usually does not exceed 100-120 kilometers.
However, the countries of the alliance have so far refrained from supplying tactical missiles or missile complexes with a range of up to 300 kilometers, and have also refrained from supplying strike aircraft and fighter jets.
The global media, citing sources, say that the United States is worried about further escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war if such weapons systems are supplied to Ukraine.
However, as stated by Rinkevics, other NATO countries believe that Ukraine should not have restrictions regarding the choice of targets, Radio Liberty reports.
Russian forces targeted the southern city of Dnipro with missiles on Monday night, damaging a private enterprise, local authorities said on Telegram.
Parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions were shelled over the past day, while Ukrainian troops repelled attacks near 10 settlements in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Ukraine’s General Staff said.
Ukraine urges Nato to take decisions faster
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said “a lot has been done” by Nato in helping to equip his country with weapons, but urged the alliance to make decisions faster.
“We appreciate what has been done, but the war goes on,” Kuleba said at a joint press briefing in Bucharest, Romania, with Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
“But decisions on weapons, decisions on launching new production lines of weapons in western countries, they have to be made faster and deliveries of weapons have to be done faster,” he said, adding that he discussed the issue with Nato.
Kuleba also asked for generators, transformers and other equipment to help the country to survive winter amid Russian attacks on energy infrastructure. He also called for more air-defence weapons.
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