“US will face 'fatal consequences' if Ukraine deploys Western weapons in Russia” – Firstpost

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Monday that the United States could suffer “fatal consequences” if it ignores Moscow's warnings not to let Ukraine use Washington-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia.

Ryabkov was commenting on President Joe Biden's decision last week to approve the use of U.S.-supplied weapons to strike targets in Russia involved in attacks on Ukraine's Kharkiv region.

“I would like to warn American leaders against miscalculations that could have fatal consequences. For unknown reasons, they underestimate the severity of the rebuff they could face,” Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the official RIA news agency.

He pointed to comments made last week by President Vladimir Putin, who said NATO countries were playing with fire and risked escalating global conflict – one of Moscow's warnings against the risk of a serious escalation.

“I urge these figures (in the United States) to devote some of their time, which they apparently devote to video games, judging by the lightness of their approach, to study in detail what has been said by Putin,” Ryabkov said.

Putin issued “a very important warning and it must be taken with the utmost seriousness,” he added.

Putin said the West would be directly involved in any use of its weapons by Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia, as such attacks would require help from its satellites, intelligence services and its military aid.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said last week that NATO had the right to help Ukraine defend its own right to self-defense, but that did not make NATO a party to the conflict.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said over the weekend that kyiv was grateful to Washington for allowing it to use U.S.-supplied HIMARS rocket systems in the Kharkiv region, but that it was not enough. Ukraine has long argued that restrictions on how it can use Western-supplied weapons seriously limit its ability to defend itself.

Russian news agencies quoted Ryabkov as saying that kyiv's attempts to attack Russian early warning radar systems would be thwarted and that Moscow could react asymmetrically to such measures.

A Kiev intelligence source said last week that a Ukrainian drone had targeted a long-range radar deep inside Russia, which is part of Russia's early warning system to detect if it is being targeted. of a nuclear attack.