Russia's Foreign Ministry warned Thursday that if the U.S. delivers sophisticated air defence systems to Ukraine, those systems and any crews that accompany them would be a 'legitimate target' for the Russian military, a blunt threat that was quickly rejected by Washington.
Russia's Foreign Ministry warned Thursday that if the U.S. delivers sophisticated air defence systems to Ukraine, those systems and any crews that accompany them would be a "legitimate target" for the Russian military, a blunt threat that was quickly rejected by Washington.
"I find it ironic and very telling that officials from a country that brutally attacked its neighbour -- in an illegal and unprovoked invasion, through a campaign that is deliberately targeting and killing innocent civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure -- that they would choose to use words like 'provocative' to describe defensive systems that are meant to save lives and protect civilians," Ryder said.
Russia has repeatedly claimed that its forces struck western-supplied weapons in Ukraine, but those statements have been impossible to independently verify.Hanna Maliar, Ukraine's deputy defence minister, told reporters Thursday in Kyiv that the delivery of such weaponry remains "sensitive not only for Ukraine, but for our partners," and that only President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov would make any official announcement on such an agreement.
The state-owned grid operator Ukrenergo warned in a statement on Facebook that damage caused to energy infrastructure by Russian attacks is being compounded by harsh weather, including snow, ice and strong winds. The head of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province, Pavlo Kyrylenko, reported that Russian strikes the previous day had killed two civilians and wounded seven.
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