Biden administration says it is 'not encouraging Ukraine to strike beyond its borders' following deadly explosions at Russian bases

Authored by businessinsider.com and submitted by bildo72

A series of deadly explosions rocked Russian bases, two of which are far from Ukraine's borders.

Moscow blamed the incidents — which also damaged military planes — on Ukrainian drones.

The US said Tuesday that it is "not encouraging Ukraine to strike beyond its borders."

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After Russian bases deep inside Russian territory were rocked by explosions, a top US official stressed that the US is not pushing Ukraine to strike targets beyond its borders.

"We have not provided Ukraine with weapons that it is to use inside of Russia. We've been very clear that these are defensive supplies," State Department spokesperson Ned Price said during a Tuesday briefing. "We are not enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders — we are not encouraging Ukraine to strike beyond its borders."

"We are providing Ukraine with what it needs to use on its sovereign territory — on Ukrainian soil — to take on Russian aggressors," he continued.

Price's comments came after a series of unusual and fatal explosions occurred at Russian air bases inside the country. Two bases both hundreds of miles from Ukraine's borders, and a third facility closer to the border, reported blasts on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

One of Monday's explosions unfolded at Engels air base, which is nearly 400 miles from Ukraine's border and used by Moscow's fleet of strategic bombers. The other explosion that day took place at the Dyagilevo air base, just southeast of Moscow. The two incidents killed and injured multiple people and damaged several planes.

Tuesday's explosion at an airfield in the Kursk region, which neighbors Ukraine, caused an oil storage tank to catch fire, according to multiple reports.

Russia's defense ministry blamed Ukrainian drones for Monday's incidents, though Kyiv has not publicly claimed responsibility. Some officials, however, have since posted provocative remarks to social media in the wake of the explosions.

"The Earth is round – discovery made by Galileo. Astronomy was not studied in Kremlin, giving preference to court astrologers," Mykhaylo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Monday. "If it was, they would know: if something is launched into other countries' airspace, sooner or later unknown flying objects will return to departure point."

Britain's defense ministry said during a Tuesday's intelligence update that although the causes of the explosions has "not been confirmed," if Russia determines that the incidents were an intentional act, "it will probably consider them as some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine."

The series of explosions does not mark the first time that Russian territory has been attacked. Russia blamed Ukraine in June for an apparent drone attack on an oil refinery in western Russia.

Throughout the course of the devastating war in Ukraine, Western countries and NATO allies have avoided sending Ukraine long-range weapons capable of striking within Russia, and they have often urged Kyiv to avoid doing so.

sharrrper on December 7th, 2022 at 01:31 UTC »

If you're fighting a defensive war against an invading neighbor then strikes across the border on military targets are a completely legitimate defensive tactic.

I don't think Ukraine should invade Russia, but that's not the same thing as cross border strikes.

ukrokit on December 6th, 2022 at 22:22 UTC »

Well either Ukraine takes continuous missile strikes to it's critical infrastructure or it takes out the staging grounds used for those strikes.

Kent_Knifen on December 6th, 2022 at 22:02 UTC »

They don't encourage it, but they understand it lol