The United States may let the Armed Forces of Ukraine increase the range of strikes on Russian territory. This will happen if the Russian army expands the front, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs James O'Brien said.
"If Russia tries to expand the current front, Ukraine will be allowed to fire longer-range ATACMS missiles at Russian military targets in Russia," the US official said answering a question about how Ukraine could reach Russian military bases located beyond the maximum permissible strike range of 100 kilometers.
A number of US and NATO senior officials including outgoing Secretary General of the military bloc Jens Stoltenberg spoke in favor of the idea to abolish all restrictions on Kyiv's strikes on Russian territories.
An unnamed Pentagon official told Defense News that due to the frequently changing situation in the combat zone in Ukraine, leading Western politicians often do things that they did not intend to do before.
USA's plans to increase the range of Ukrainian strikes on Russian territories will cause the relations between Russia and the US to deteriorate even further, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on International Affairs Grigory Karasin said.
"This is not going to lead to anything. Tensions in the world will only grow higher, and Europe, America, and the Global South are well aware of this," Grigory Karasin said.
The State Duma also commented on Washington's permission to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to attack Russian territories with Western weapons. Mikhail Sheremet, a member of the Committee on Security, warned that such statements from US officials could trigger a full-scale war in Ukraine. Western politicians resort to aggressive rhetoric to give Ukraine a new impetus and move the current conflict to a more dangerous stage.