Kremlin reacts to Zelensky’s demand for Tomahawks

The Ukrainian leader is trying to drag Western countries into a war with Russia, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov

Vladimir Zelensky is trying to drag Western countries into a war with Russia by means of his ‘victory plan’, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Thursday. He was responding to a question on recent media reports about Kiev’s demand that the US provide Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The New York Times reported this week that Zelensky had secretly asked Washington for Tomahawks in order to strike targets deep inside Russia. Kiev has long called on the West to lift restrictions on the use of such weapons.

“Apparently, all the ‘peace plans’, all the ‘victory plans’, secret or not secret – they all boil down to Kiev dragging Western countries into war as quickly as possible and legitimizing it,” Peskov told reporters.

The Kremlin spokesman also said that Ukraine was starting to “show considerable nervousness” regarding the situation at the front.

Flying up to 1,500 miles (2,400km), Tomahawk missiles far exceed the range of any of the Western-made weapons previously supplied to Kiev. By comparison, the ATACMS system that Kiev has received from the US has a range of 300km.

NYT sources described Kiev’s request as “totally unfeasible,” adding that Ukraine failed to make “a convincing case to Washington on how it would use the long-range weapons.” 

The US has long been reluctant to allow Ukraine to use American-made weapons to strike deep into Russia. The NYT also reported that American officials “have privately expressed some exasperation” with Zelensky’s plan, calling it “unrealistic and dependent almost entirely on Western aid.” 

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Western permission for Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes using foreign-made weapons would equate to NATO “waging war” against Russia. Putin has said that Kiev would be unable to carry out such attacks on its own because it would need targeting data that can only be provided by the US-led bloc.

Previously, the Russian president proposed making changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine to allow it to employ nuclear weapons if Kiev were to use Western-supplied conventional long-range missiles to strike Russian territory.

Meanwhile, Zelensky has expressed frustration with the fact that classified details of his ‘victory plan’, including the request for Tomahawks, has become public. Speaking to Western journalists in Kiev on Wednesday, he complained that the leak of “confidential information between Ukraine and [the] White House” could mean there is no confidentiality in communications with Washington.