Putin touts sending long-range weapons to those who want to strike the West

• Vladimir Putin has floated the idea of ​​sending long-range weapons around the world to those who want to strike the West.
• He made the threat Wednesday while speaking to reporters in St. Petersburg.
• This was a response to the fact that Ukraine's allies had allowed it to strike Russian soil with their weapons.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin said Wednesday he could send long-range weapons to “regions of the world” wanting to strike Western targets after the United States and its allies authorized Ukrainian strikes with their weapons on the ground Russian.

Speaking to international journalists in St. Petersburg, Putin said the new firing agreement between kyiv and key members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization demonstrated the alliance's “direct involvement in the war against the Russian Federation.

Moscow reserves “the right to act in the same way”, he added.

“If they consider it possible to supply such weapons to the combat zone to launch strikes on our territory and create problems for us, why do we not have the right to supply weapons of the same class to certain regions of the world where they can be used to launch strikes on sensitive installations of countries that do so in Russia? he said.

Putin said this response could be “asymmetric,” but did not specify which organizations or governments could receive such weapons from the Kremlin.

He claimed without evidence that Western countries supplying long-range weapons to Ukraine also deploy personnel to direct and aim munitions fired from those weapons. The United States has said it does not track specific targets hit by Ukraine.

“We are simply not in a position on a day-to-day basis to know exactly what the Ukrainians are shooting at and at what,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday. “It’s certainly at the tactical level.”

Putin's comments come just days after Washington and Berlin renounced their long-standing policy and authorized kyiv to launch strikes with American and German weapons. Other major Ukraine supply allies, including the United Kingdom and France, had already authorized such strikes.

But President Joe Biden has only authorized Ukraine to fire on military targets in Russian regions bordering the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Russian forces launched a new attack on Kharkiv early last month, and Ukraine said it knew the Kremlin was massing equipment and troops in the nearby town of Belgorod, but could do nothing about it. do due to targeting restrictions.

In addition to the area restrictions, the United States also banned Ukraine from launching ATACMS missiles on Russian soil.

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Europe and the United States have provided more than 95% of all military aid to Ukraine since the start of the war.

The United States sent Ukraine approximately $47 billion in military aid between February 2022 and February 2024, according to the Kiel Institute.

A new package initially delayed by Congress this year contained about $25 billion more in equipment and another $17 billion in funding for other military purposes, according to a tally by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.