President Putin Ensures Moscow Responds If West Helps Ukraine Attack Far Into Russian Territory

Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Source: Alexandr Kryazev/brics-russia2024.ru Host Photo Agency via Kremlin)

JAKARTA - President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday the Russian Ministry of Defense was seeking various ways to respond if the United States and its NATO allies helped Ukraine strike deep into Russian territory with Western long-range missiles.

President Putin said on September 12, Western approval for the move would mean "direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine", as NATO military infrastructure and personnel should be involved in targeting and firing missiles.

However, he said it was too early to say exactly how Russia would react to the move, but Moscow should respond appropriately and options being considered.

"(Russian Ministry of Defense) is thinking of ways to respond to possible long-range attacks on Russian territory, they will offer various responses," President Putin told Kremlin's main reporter on Russian state TV, Pavel Zarubin.

With Russia's fastest progress in eastern Ukraine since its first months of invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pleaded with the West to allow Kyiv to shoot deep into Russia with Western missiles.

The United States has not publicly said whether it will allow Ukraine to attack Russia, but some of the country's officials are highly skeptical it will make significant differences in war.

On the other hand, Ukrainian forces have attacked Russia regularly by long-range drone.

Russian troops have taken control of the coal mining town Selydove in Ukraine's Donetsk region more than a week after first storming the city, according to pro-Russian war bloggers.

It is known that the 2.5-year Ukraine war has sparked the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War. Russian officials say the war is now entering its most dangerous phase.

Russia has signaled to the United States and its allies for weeks if they give Ukraine permission to strike deep into Russian territory with a missile supplied by the West, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation.

President Putin, who ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, described the war as a battle between Russia and the declining West, which he said ignored Russia's interests after the collapse of the Soviets in 1991.

Ukraine and its Western allies say President Putin is launching an imperial-style war against his smaller neighbors and has repeatedly said that if Russia wins the war, autocratic countries around the world will be bolder.

When asked if the West had heard Russian warnings, Putin told Zarubin: "I hope they have heard. Because, of course, we also have to make some decisions for ourselves."

President Putin said only NATO officers could fire such weapons at Russia and that they needed to use Western satellite data to target the weapons, so the question was "whether they would allow themselves to attack deep into Russian territory or not. That's the question."