In an interview broadcast on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened the US that if the West gave longer-range missiles to Ukraine for use in high-precision mobile rocket systems, Russia would hit new targets.
The US has refused to send its own or NATO forces to Ukraine, but Washington and its European allies have given Kyiv with weapons such as drones, Howitzer heavy artillery, anti-aircraft Stinger and anti-tank Javelin missiles.
President Joe Biden announced last week that the United States would provide Ukraine with M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, after receiving guarantees from Kiev that they would not be used to target Russia.
Putin said the arms shipments were ‘nothing new’ and did not change anything, but he warned that if the US supplied longer-range ammunition for the HIMARS systems, which have a maximum range of up to 300 km (186.41 miles), there would be a response.
If longer-range missiles are given, “we will strike at those sites that we have not yet hit,” Putin said in an interview with the official television channel Rossiya-1.
Putin stated that the range of the Lockheed Martin HIMARS systems was dependent on the ammunition given, and that the range announced by the US was comparable to Soviet-made missile systems that Ukraine already possessed.
‘This isn’t anything new. In essence, it makes no difference,’ Putin stated. He said that the arms were simply replacements for those destroyed by Russia.
Putin did not name the sites Russia will strike, but he did say the ‘fuss’ about Western military shipments was intended to prolong the battle.
The US Department of Defense announced it was supplying Ukraine with four M142 HIMARS systems as well as the Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System, which it claimed had a range of more than 40 miles (64 km), more than doubling the range of the howitzers it delivered.
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