New long-range weapons wont target sites in Russia, says Kyiv

Minister says arms supplied by Western allies will be used only against Russian units in Ukraine

KYIV Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Sunday that Kyiv would not use new longrange weapons from the West to strike targets in Russia.

“On Friday, our partners decided to provide us with weapons capable of firing at a distance of 150km.

“We always tell our partners that we take an obligation not to use the weapons of foreign partners against the territory of Russia, only against their units in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine for the purpose of de-occupying our land,” he said.

The United States on Friday announced a new US$2.2_ billion S$2.9 billion) package of arms and munitions for Ukraine, which the Pentagon said included a new rocket-propelled precision bomb that could nearly double Kyiv’s strike range against Russian forces.

They potentially give Kyiv’s forces the ability to strike anywhere in the Russian-occupied Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as the northern part of occupied Crimea.

France and Italy for their part are expected to deliver mobile surface-to-air missile systems.

In an interview with the weekly Bild am Sonntag published on Sunday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed that weapons supplied by the West would not be used to attack Russian territory.