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Moscow has decried the West’s support for Ukraine’s ongoing incursion into its territory, following the tacit endorsement of the operation by NATO’s top brass, and warned that the country will respond in a fierce manner.
The Kursk raid, which began on August 6 and continues to make headway into Russia’s border regions, has continued to drawn significant condemnation from Moscow, who have also criticized those supporting Kyiv in what it views as an illegal encroachment on its territory.
“We would like to warn such irresponsible politicians in the EU, NATO and overseas that in the event of corresponding aggressive steps by the Kiev regime, Russia’s response will follow immediately…and will be extremely painful,” Maria Zakharova, director of the Foreign Ministry press department, said Wednesday.
Her remarks were delivered on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum, held annually in Vladivostock, and came in response to recent comments on the Kursk offensive from NATO’s top ranking official.
In remarks published on Saturday, NATO Secretary General-Jens Stoltenberg told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that Ukraine’s incursion was an act of self-defense against Russian aggression, and that Russian targets in the border regions were legitimate targets for Ukrainian attacks.
“Russia has been waging an unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine for more than 900 days and has since carried out numerous attacks from the Kursk region across the border against Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said. “The Russian soldiers, tanks and bases are legitimate targets under international law.”
Stoltenberg, who previously served as Prime Minister of Norway, added that Ukraine’s right to defend itself from Russian attacks “does not stop at the border.”
While the comments, characterized by Zakharova as “pseudo-legal justification for this illegal invasion,” stopped short of endorsing Ukraine’s operation, other Western leaders have heaped praise on Kyiv’s efforts.
During a Council on Foreign Relations interview in mid-August, General Christopher Cavoli praised the “operational and tactical surprise” that Ukraine had achieved with its unforeseen incursion.
Cavoli, Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the second-highest ranking military figure within NATO, added that Russia had so far exhibited a “slow and scattered” reaction to the raid, and had failed to formulate a coherent strategy for repelling Kyiv’s forces.
On Thursday, the European Union‘s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that Ukraine had shown “a lot of strategic audacity” by launching attacks inside the Russian territory, and that the Kursk operation had “delt a blow to Putin’s narrative about this war.”
Borrell also called on Ukraine’s allies to lift restrictions on the use of weapons provided to the country, and allow its armed forces to use these for strikes against targets inside Russian territory.
Zakharova, who also took aim at Borrell’s remarks, claimed that these amounted to the EU “allowing terrorism against Russia.”
“EU politicians refuse to think not only sensibly and far-sightedly, but also in line with their own principles,” Zakharova said. “They lose their sense of reality and do not think at all about the risks of further dangerous escalation of the conflict, even in the context of their own interests.”
