Zelensky says push into Russia shows the West’s red lines are ‘naive’
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Ukraine’s surprise offensive into western Russia shows the West that its fears about the ramifications of attacks on Russian territory are unfounded.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
KYIV – President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that Ukraine’s surprise offensive into western Russia, which entered its third week on Aug 20, shows the West that its fears about the ramifications of attacks on Russian territory are unfounded and should be abandoned.
As his forces attempted to push deeper into Russian territory, Mr Zelensky seized the moment to challenge a limitation from Ukraine’s allies that has long frustrated Ukraine: the use of Western-supplied long-range weapons against Russia, which Ukraine argues is key to disrupting Moscow’s military operations.
“The whole naive, illusory concept of so-called red lines regarding Russia, which dominated the assessment of the war by some partners, has crumbled these days somewhere near Sudzha,” Mr Zelensky told Ukrainian ambassadors to other countries in a speech published on the evening of Aug 19. He was referring to the western Russian town of Sudzha, which Ukrainian forces captured last week.
For more than two years, Washington has prevented Ukraine from using the weapons it supplied to strike into Russia, citing fears of an escalating conflict between Moscow and the West.
This spring, after months of Ukrainian lobbying, the US and other Nato countries adjusted their policies and granted permission for Ukraine to do that.
But the Biden administration said Ukraine could use American weapons only to strike military targets a short distance into Russia.
Mr Zelensky confirmed in his speech to the ambassadors that Ukraine had kept its allies in the dark when preparing for the recent incursion, aware that some partners would object to an operation that “would cross the strictest of all the red lines that Russia has”.
But Moscow’s faltering response to Ukraine’s offensive – defences near the border collapsed and reinforcements have been slow to arrive – should signal to the world that Russia is not the fearsome superpower it once appeared to be, Mr Zelensky noted.
“It is the time when the world is shedding its last and very naive illusions about Russia,” he said.
Moscow pledged a response to Ukraine’s incursion soon after it began, but so far its military has not produced a retaliatory operation. NYTIMES
