The United States and some other Western embassies in Kiev said they would remain closed Wednesday for security reasons, with the US delegation saying it had been warned of a possible major Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital.
The precautionary move came after Russian officials promised to respond to President Joe Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike targets on Russian territory with US-made missiles – a move that angered the Kremlin.
The US embassy said its closure and warning of the attack were issued in the context of ongoing Russian missile and drone attacks on Kiev, and it expected a quick return to normal operations.
The Italian and Greek embassies also closed their doors to the public today, but the UK government said its embassy remained open.
The war, which reached 1,000 days on Tuesday, has taken on an increasingly international dimension with North Korean troops arriving to help Russia on the battlefield — a development that US officials said prompted Biden’s shift in policy.
Later, Russian President Vladimir Putin lowered the threshold for using his nuclear arsenal, with the new doctrine announced on Tuesday that allows for a possible nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any country backed by a nuclear power.
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This would likely include US-backed Ukrainian attacks.
Western leaders rejected the Russian move as an attempt to deter Ukraine’s allies from providing more support to Kiev, but rising tensions weighed on stock markets after Ukraine used long-range US-made ATACMS missiles for the first time to strike a target inside Russia.
Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia is stockpiling powerful long-range missiles, perhaps in an upcoming attempt to crush the Ukrainian power grid come winter.
The US decision on how far US-made missiles can be used is not expected to be a game-changer in the war, but it could help weaken the Russian war effort, according to the Institute for the Study of Nuclear Weapons, military analysts say. War, a research center in Washington.
“Ukrainian long-range strikes against military targets deep inside Russia are necessary to weaken Russian military capabilities throughout the theater,” she said.
Meanwhile, North Korea recently supplied Russia with additional artillery systems, according to South Korea. She said North Korean soldiers have been assigned to Russian naval and airborne units, and some have already begun fighting alongside the Russians on the front lines.
Ukraine struck a factory in Russia’s Belgorod region that makes cargo drones for the armed forces in an overnight attack, according to Andriy Kovalenko, head of the anti-disinformation branch of the Ukrainian Security Council.
He also claimed that Ukraine struck an arsenal in Russia’s Novgorod region, near the town of Kotovo, which lies about 680 kilometers (420 miles) behind the Ukrainian border. He added that the arsenal contains artillery ammunition and various types of missiles.
It was not possible to independently verify these allegations.
& Edition 2024 The Canadian Press
