WASHINGTON, June 19. /TASS/. The United States believes that Kiev can use American weapons to hit Russian troops stationed on Russian territory on the border with Ukraine's Sumy Region, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
"It [the authorization to use US weapons to strike the Russian territory] extends to anywhere that Russian forces are coming across the border from the Russian side to the Ukrainian side to try to take additional Ukrainian territory," he told PBS.
In response to a reporter's clarifying question about whether Washington's authorization applies to Russian regions bordering the Sumy Region, Sullivan replied that the US has seen "exploratory moves" by the Russian military into the region. "It [the provision] would apply there as well," the Washington administration official added.
Sullivan also pointed out that the US is "permitting Ukrainian forces to attack Russian forces <…> with artillery, with other ground-based munitions." The official said that Ukraine "can use air defense systems, including those supplied by the United States, to take Russian planes out of the sky, even if those Russian planes are in Russian airspace, if they're about to fire into Ukrainian airspace."
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed on May 31 that President Joe Biden had agreed to allow Ukraine to use US weapons to attack Russian territory. According to the top US diplomat, it is only about strikes on the Russian territory near Kharkov. At the same time, he did not exclude that the range of strikes with American weapons on the Russian territory would increase.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on May 28 that the selection of targets and flight orders for modern strike systems are made remotely or automatically, "without the presence of Ukrainian servicemen." This is done by those who manufacture and supply these strike systems to Ukraine, he pointed out. Putin warned that NATO countries should "realize what they are playing with." Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev pointed out on May 31 that all long-range weapons delivered to Ukraine are already "directly controlled by NATO servicemen," and that such actions could be a pretext for retaliatory strikes.