The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs threatened this Thursday with "consequences" (without specifying what) to the United States if it approves the shipment of sophisticated anti-aircraft defense missiles to Ukraine, in what it considers "another provocative move" by the Joe Biden government in retaliation by the military invasion that he launched in February.
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for the ministry, said the United States had "effectively become a party" to the war, following media reports that Biden will provide Ukraine with Patriot surface-to-air missiles, the most advanced the West can put into service. Ukrainian hands to repel Russian air strikes.
Such an increase in US military aid "would mean an even greater involvement of military personnel in the hostilities and could carry possible consequences," Zakharova added.
[The United States plans to send Patriot missiles to Ukraine. Why can they change the balance of the war?]
US officials said Tuesday that the government is about to approve sending a battery of Patriot missiles to Ukraine, finally agreeing to a request from the country's leaders desperate for more powerful weapons to shoot down the Russian missiles that have paralyzed the country's key infrastructures such as the electricity grid in the dead of winter.
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Running and maintaining a Patriot battery requires up to 90 soldiers, and for months the United States has been reluctant to provide the complex system because sending American forces to Ukraine to operate the systems is not a viable option for the President's Administration. , Joe Biden.
Even without the presence of the US military to train the Ukrainians, concerns persist that the deployment of the missiles could provoke Russia or the risk that a fired projectile would hit Russian territory and further escalate the conflict.
Before reports of the handover of the Patriot systems emerged, Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia's Security Council, which is chaired by Vladimir Putin, said that if the Patriots enter Ukraine "along with NATO personnel they will immediately become a legitimate target for the Russian armed forces.
Asked on Wednesday if Putin backs the threat, spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he did but declined to elaborate further.
A firefighter examines a car burned in an attack attributed by Russia to Ukraine in Donetsk on December 15, 2022. Alexei Alexandrov / AP
Two Pentagon officials said Russia's threats would not change the calculation of what weapons the United States provides.
The White House and Pentagon have repeatedly asserted that giving Ukraine air defenses is a priority, and have considered the option of Patriot missiles for some time.
As winter approached and Russian bombardments of civilian infrastructure intensified, the idea became a priority.
Ukraine's electricity provider said on Thursday that the power system is suffering from a "significant electricity deficit", with emergency blackouts in some areas despite freezing temperatures.
Ukrenergo warned in a statement on social networks that the damage caused to energy infrastructure by the Russian attacks is being aggravated by harsh weather conditions, including snow, ice and strong winds.
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Highs in the capital are forecast to barely rise above freezing heading into the weekend, with even colder weather expected early next week.
The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson was completely without power after Russian shelling on Thursday, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president's office, wrote on Telegram.
He added that two people died.
Heavy shelling continued in the afternoon in the city's Korabelny district, with Russian shells hitting within 100 meters of the regional administration building, it said.
Seven civilians were killed and 19 wounded on Wednesday and Thursday, according to a report issued by the Ukrainian president's office.
The head of Ukraine's eastern Donetsk province, Pavlo Kyrylenko, reported that Russian attacks the previous day had killed two civilians and wounded seven.
A newborn dies in the bombing of a maternity hospital in Ukraine.
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Authorities in the region, backed by the Russian regime and illegally annexed by Putin in September, announced that Russia had taken control of 80% of the city of Marinka, considered crucial to Ukrainian hopes of retaking the regional capital, Donetsk.
Moscow-installed Donetsk mayor Aleksei Kulemzin said on Thursday the city center had been hit by "the most massive attack" since the area came under the control of Russia-backed separatists in 2014.
Kulemzin said 40 Ukrainian rockets hit Donetsk on Thursday, noting that multi-storey residential buildings were hit and fires broke out at a hospital and a university campus.
Ukrainian forces also shelled Russia's western Kursk province, according to the governor, Roman Starovoyt.
Six shells hit a farm in the Belovsky district, which borders the Ukrainian province of Sumy.
There were no victims.
