According to a report by the American newspaper “Washington Post”, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zalushnyi admitted his country’s attacks on Russian territory. Thus, he said he used domestically produced weapons for these beatings. “It is our problem and we have to decide how to kill the enemy. It is possible and necessary to kill him on his territory in war,” Zalushnyi told the newspaper in an article published on its website on Friday. Russian border regions in particular are repeatedly subjected to massive artillery and drone fire from the Ukrainian side.
The US newspaper pointed out that Kiev would not officially admit the beatings across the border. “If our partners are afraid to use their weapons, then we kill with ours,” Zalushny said, referring to Western Allies’ demands not to attack Russian territory with the supplied weapons. “To protect my people, why should I ask anyone’s permission to do what I’m doing in enemy territory?”
According to the report, Zalushny would like significantly more weapons, including cruise missiles, and sovereignty over airspace to defeat the Russian occupiers. But the country couldn’t wait for the F-16 fighters until next year, he said.
According to the report, Zalushny made it clear that he also wanted to bring back the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. “As soon as I have the means, I will do something. I don’t care, nobody will stop me,” he said. Consequently, he does not want to be intimidated by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats.
In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy contradicted fears in Berlin that his armed forces could attack Russian territory with more modern Western weapons. “We are not attacking Russian territory. We are liberating our rightful territory,” Selenski said in a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “We don’t have the time, we don’t have the strength and we don’t have superfluous weapons for that.” Under international law, the country focused exclusively on liberating “our territory recognized by the whole world” when preparing the counter-offensive.