Blinken says Ukraine must decide on whether to extend Russian border

Washington supports whatever is necessary to win the war between Kiev and Russia, according to top diplomat Blinken.

It is up to Ukraine to decide whether or not to expand the conflict with Russia beyond their own borders, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Senate on Wednesday. His comments came after Moscow condemned a senior British official who said it would be legitimate for Kiev to use NATO-supplied weapons to attack Russian territory.

We want to get them what they need to deal with this Russian aggression and to push the Russians out of the country. It is another matter as to whether Ukrainians should take action that go beyond their borders, said Blinken at a hearing Wednesday afternoon before the Senate Appropriations Committee on the State Department's 2023 budget.

My view is that it is important that they do whatever is necessary to defend against Russian aggression, but what we are doing is making sure that the Ukrainians have the means to defend themselves, and making sure that they can push the Russians out of the country, he added.

Just a few hours earlier, the Russian Ministry of Defence accused London of a direct provocation after British Armed Forces Minister James Heappey suggested Kiev should use UK-supplied weapons to attack targets inside Russia.

The Russian military said that London's direct provocation of the Kiev regime to such actions, should they attempt to do so, will immediately lead to our proportional response. We have warned that Russian armed forces are on standby around the clock to retaliate with long-range high-precision weapons against decision-making centers in Kiev. Heappey had told Times Radio that it would be perfectly legitimate for Ukraine to target Russia's depth in order to disrupt the logistics that if they weren't disrupted would directly contribute to death and carnage on Ukrainian soil. Authorities in the Russian regions of Voronezh and Kursk, which border Ukraine, reported on Wednesday that air defenses engaged and shot down what they said were Ukrainian drones. Two men arrested in Belgorod Region have been arrested on behalf of Ukraine allegedly preparing a terrorist attack on transportation infrastructure.

The authorities in the self-proclaimed republic of Transnistria reported incursions by drones and shots fired from Ukrainian territory in the mainly Russian-speaking region between Ukraine and Moldova.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that there would be a swift response to any outside intervention in the conflict.

If someone decides to intervene in the ongoing events from the outside and create unacceptable strategic threats to us, they should know that our response will be swift, lightning-fast, said Putin.

He added that we have all the tools to do this. We will use them if a need arises. Russia attacked the neighboring state after Ukraine s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements signed in 2014, and Moscow s eventual recognition of the Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German and French Minsk Protocol was designed to give the breakaway regions special status within the Ukrainian state.

The Kremlin has since demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was unprovoked and has denied that it was planning to retake the two republics by force.