Ukraine renews calls on the West to approve long-range strikes on Russian territory

A Ukrainian reacts after being released in a prisoner exchange at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Saturday Sept. 14, 2024. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine made a new call Saturday on the West to allow it to strike deeper into Russia after a meeting between U.S. and British leaders a day earlier produced no visible shift in their policy on the use of long-range weapons.

The renewed appeal came as Kyiv said Russia launched more drone and artillery attacks into Ukraine overnight.

“Russian terror begins at weapons depots, airfields and military bases inside the Russian Federation,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said Saturday. “Permission to strike deep into Russia will speed up the solution.”

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly called on allies to greenlight the use of Western-provided long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. So far, the U.S. has allowed Kyiv to use American-provided weapons only in a limited area inside Russia’s border with Ukraine.

Discussions on allowing long-range strikes were believed to be on the table when U.S. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met in Washington on Friday but no decision was announced immediately.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pressing the U.S. and other allies to allow his forces to use Western weapons to target air bases and launch sites farther afield as Russia has stepped up assaults on Ukraine’s electricity grid and utilities before winter.

He did not directly comment on the meeting Saturday morning, but said that more than 70 Russian drones had been launched into Ukraine overnight. The Ukrainian air force later said that 76 Russian drones had been sighted, of which 72 were shot down.

“We need to boost our air defense and long-range capabilities to protect our people,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “We are working on this with all of Ukraine’s partners.”

Other overnight attacks saw one person killed by Russian artillery fire as energy infrastructure was targeted in Ukraine’s Sumy region. A 54-year-old driver was killed and seven more people were hospitalized, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said.

Another three people died Saturday in a Russian strike on an agricultural enterprise in the front-line town of Huliaipole in the Zaporizhzhia region, Gov. Ivan Fedorov said.

Moscow warns Western nations

Meanwhile, officials in Moscow have continued to make public statements warning that long-range strikes would provoke further escalation between Russia and the West. The remarks are in line with the narrative the Kremlin has promoted since early in the war, accusing NATO countries of de-facto participation in the conflict and threatening a response.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told state news agency Tass on Saturday that the U.S. and British governments were pushing the conflict, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, toward “poorly controlled escalation.”

Biden on Friday brushed off similar comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said on Thursday that allowing long-range strikes “would mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries, are at war with Russia.”

Asked what he thought about Putin’s threat, Biden answered, “I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin.”

POWs exchanged

Russian and Ukrainian officials also announced on Saturday a prisoner swap brokered by the United Arab Emirates. It included 206 prisoners on both sides, including Russians captured in Ukraine’s incursion in the Kursk region.

The swap is the eighth of its kind since the beginning of 2024, and puts the total number of POWs exchanged at 1,994. Previous exchanges were also brokered by the UAE.

Both sides released images of soldiers traveling to meet friends and family, with Zelenskyy commenting, “Our people are home."

Elsewhere, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 19 Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the country’s Kursk and Belgorod regions.

A woman also died Saturday after a Ukrainian shell hit her home in the border village of Bezlyudovka, Belgorod regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.