State Department: US neither ‘enabling’ nor ‘encouraging’ Ukraine to strike targets in Russia
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The U.S. has not supplied Ukraine with weapons to use beyond its borders and is not encouraging the country to conduct such strikes, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Dec. 6, according to CNN. “We are providing Ukraine with what it needs to use on its sovereign territory, on Ukrainian soil, to take on Russian aggressors that have crossed over the border,” added Price.
Earlier in the day, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland suggested in an interview with CNN that Ukraine was behind recent explosions on two Russian military air bases.
“The Ukrainians are enormously innovative. They are working very hard with their own technologies and their own equipment,” she said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that three soldiers had been killed and four had been injured by the alleged drone attacks on the Dyagilevo airfield near the city of Ryazan and the Engels-1 military air base in Saratov Oblast on Dec. 5. The ministry blamed Ukraine’s Armed Forces for the strikes, claiming that the latter had used modified Soviet-era unmanned jets.
Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied its responsibility for the incidents. If carried out by Ukraine, the attacks are Ukraine’s deepest strikes into Russian territory so far- 600-700 kilometers from Ukrainian-controlled areas.
Russia stations strategic missile-carrying bombers at both airfields, which it uses for long-range air-launched cruise missile attacks against Ukraine.
