Pentagon rejects Kremlin criticism of US-fueled escalation in Ukraine 

 

FILE – A U.S. Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) fires during exercises between the U.S. and South Korea at an undisclosed location in South Korea, July 29, 2017. The White House, Nov. 17, 2024, reportedly allowed Kyiv to use ATACMS missiles for deeper strikes inside Russia.

Pentagon —

The Pentagon dismissed a new round of Russian accusations that the United States is pushing the war in Ukraine into ever more dangerous territory as “reckless” rhetoric, calling out Moscow and its allies for escalating tensions.

U.S. defense officials Monday declined to confirm media reports that President Joe Biden has decided to allow Kyiv to use Washington-supplied, long-range missiles to strike deeper inside Russian territory. But they said Moscow has no grounds for any complaints.

"What\’s adding fuel to the fire is the fact that DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] soldiers are now entering a fight,” said Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh, in response to a question from VOA.

"We\’re talking about North Korean soldiers being used to take sovereign territory, Ukrainian sovereign territory, and continue to push this war forward,” Singh said. “That certainly we view as escalatory."

The U.S. estimates that there are at least 11,000 North Koreans troops moving into the Kursk region in southern Russia, which Ukraine captured in a surprise attack in August and still holds.

FILE – U.S. Army soldiers conduct live fire testing of an ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile System) at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, Dec. 14, 2021. (John Hamilton/U.S. Army)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had lobbied Washington for months to be allowed to use the longer-range rockets against military targets deep inside Russia, contending they were needed to hit rocket arsenals and other weaponry being stored by Russia before their use targeting Ukraine’s cities and electrical grids.

Biden, until now, had resisted allowing use of the longer-range missiles for fear it would escalate the war and tensions with the U.S.-led NATO military alliance. But North Korea’s deployment of troops to fight alongside Moscow’s forces alarmed Washington.

ATACMS are long-range guided missiles produced by U.S. aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin. The missiles carry a 227-kilogram fragmentation warhead and are tough to intercept due to their high speed.

The rockets are fitted with a specialized GPS and carry cluster munitions. When the clusters open in the air, hundreds of bomblets are released rather than a single warhead.

Whether the Biden decision to supply the missiles — and how many — remains in place when President-elect Donald Trump takes office January 20 is uncertain. Trump has expressed skepticism about continued U.S. support for Ukraine, declining during a September political debate to say that he wanted Ukraine to win the war.

Trump has claimed he would broker an end to the war before he takes office but not said how he would accomplish that.

The president-elect has not commented publicly on the Biden decision to supply Ukraine with the longer-range missiles, but his son, Donald Trump Jr., quickly criticized it.

“The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives,” he said on social media.

Biden’s policy shift came as a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions on Sunday evening struck a residential area of Sumy, a city in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people, including two children, and injuring 84 others.

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish the fire following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-story apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Nov. 17, 2024.

On Monday, another Russian missile attack started fires in two apartment blocks in Odesa, in southern Ukraine. At least eight people were killed and 18 were injured, including a child, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said.

The Sumy attack on Sunday followed a massive Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s power infrastructure earlier in the day.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine and its allies should focus on “really forcing Russia to end the war.”

“Today marked one of the largest and most dangerous Russian attacks in the entire war — 210 drones and missiles launched simultaneously — including hypersonic and aeroballistic ones,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Sunday.

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.

 

By：VOA