Russia threatens to expand “buffer zone” in Ukraine if Kiev receives longer-range missiles

Russia will have to expand what it considers a “buffer zone” inside Ukraine if Kiev receives advanced, longer-range ATACMS guided missile systems from the US, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned on Wednesday. Reuters reports.

The White House said last October that it had made available to Kiev a type of ATACMS system capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 165 kilometers. But a new US package being prepared now, after a long-delayed aid bill was approved by Congress, is expected to include a type with a longer range of 300 km.

The US is preparing a military aid package worth one billion dollars for Ukraine, the first result of the Ukraine-Israel bill, which has not yet been signed by President Joe Biden, two US officials told Reuters on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that Kiev will receive long-range ATACMS and thanked Washington.

This increases the probability that Ukraine will use these missiles to hit targets deeper inside the territory controlled by Russian forces, especially in Crimea, illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Asked Wednesday about the possibility that the new aid package for Ukraine could include longer-range ATACMS missiles, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s position on the matter, which it has outlined since May many times, it remained unchanged.

Moscow will be forced to extend what it calls a “buffer zone” (or “cordon sanitaire”) in Ukraine if longer-range missiles are delivered, he explained.

“Nothing changes in this regard,” Peskov insisted.

The ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems) are mounted on trucks and have a flight speed of Mach 3, considerably higher than the British and French cruise missiles currently in Ukraine’s arsenal.

The Kremlin said last month that the only way to protect Russian territory – which it says includes, in addition to Crimea, four other regions that Moscow annexed in September 2022 from Ukraine (Donetsk, eastern Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporozhye, in the south) – from the Ukrainian attacks is to have a “buffer zone” in Ukraine, so that this territory is outside the range of action of the Ukrainian guns.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared last year that Russian forces would respond to Kiev’s delivery of Western weapons with a longer range of action by trying to push Ukrainian forces even further from the border.

The US delivery, which is unlikely to be made public when it takes place, could stipulate that Ukraine cannot use ATACMS to strike targets inside Russia, Reuters notes.

Publisher: CLB

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