WASHINGTON: The United States will provide additional security assistance to Ukraine, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications told VOA in an interview Friday.
Asked if Washington would heed Russia’s warning not to deliver sophisticated Patriot air defense missiles or risk the consequences, John Kirby replied, “Russia will not dictate to the United States or any other country what security assistance we provide to Ukraine.”
Kirby said Washington was in “lockstep with the Ukrainians, talking to them almost every day about what their needs are, and making sure that we are best meeting those needs.”
Kirby stressed that air defense capabilities were becoming a chief requirement of Ukraine’s military after Russia’s “unprecedented” airstrikes with cruise missiles and Iranian drones, “the likes of which we’ve just seen again over the last 12 to 18 hours,” he told VOA.
Kirby said Washington’s focus was to help Ukraine succeed in the battlefield in whichever way Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sees fit. The U.S., he said, does not dictate to Ukraine how to defend its territory.
In his video address Friday, Zelenskyy said Russia still had enough missiles for more massive strikes like the one it launched earlier in the day against Ukraine’s electrical grid.
“Whatever the rocket worshippers from Moscow are counting on, it still won’t change the balance of power in this war,” he said in the video address.
On Thursday, Russia’s foreign ministry warned the U.S. that if it shipped sophisticated Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, Moscow would consider it a “provocative move” that could prompt a response from the Kremlin.
Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said that U.S. provision of the Patriot missiles for use in combating Russian airstrikes would represent an escalation in the U.S. role in helping the Kyiv government fend off Russia’s 10-month war and “could entail possible consequences.”
She did not spell out what Moscow’s response might be but said the United States should “draw the right conclusions” from Russia’s warnings that equipment supplied by the U.S. would be a legitimate target for Russian attacks. With its arms shipments to Ukraine, she said, the U.S. already has “effectively become a party” to the war.
U.S. officials this week confirmed to reporters plans to send the Patriot missile system to Ukraine, which Zelenskyy has long said Ukraine needs to defend itself against an onslaught of Russian airstrikes targeting vital infrastructure, including power and water facilities. However, no official announcement has been made.
(VOA)
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