(Zero Hedge)—Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that any Washington decision to supply Ukraine with long-range Tomahawk missiles for strikes deep into Russian territory would irreparably damage Moscow’s relations with Washington.
The warning comes less than two months after Putin met with President Donald Trump at a summit in Alaska, which sought de-escalation in Ukraine and was focused on improving bilateral relations. But now Putin is making clear that these relations could be destroyed, also at a moment the extension to the New START nuclear treaty has left some breathing room for nuclear negotiations.
“This will lead to the destruction of our relationship. Or at least the emerging positive trends in this relationship. So I’m saying what I think. And how things turn out depends not only on us,” Putin said in a fresh interview with Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin, parts of which were widely published Sunday.
Given the Tomahawk missile has a range of at least 1,500 miles, it could potentially hit Moscow and offices of Kremlin leaders, unleashing the likelihood of runaway escalation toward WW3. This is basically what Moscow is now warning about.
Already the US has said it is assisting Kiev with long-range targeting, which has included daily drone warfare, sometimes reaching over 800 miles into Russia with strikes on energy facilities. Probably such intel-sharing had long been happening for years in the war.
Vice President J.D. Vance had last week indicated the US is looking into the European request to send Tomahawks, and the Kremlin has said it would be deeply surprised if the US took this step.
Still, Trump has voiced frustration with Putin, going so far as to call Russia a “paper tiger” for its inability to quickly and decisively defeat Ukraine.
Yet it should be remembered that Russia’s actions are still only at the level of “Special Military Operation” and a full war mobilization has not been ordered.
Moscow has not revealed an intent to utterly destroy Kiev, and for the most part has not begun obliterating ‘decision-making’ centers, leaving open a chance for de-escalation.
Putin also last Thursday separately pointed out it was impossible to use Tomahawks without the direct participation of American specialists and thus any supply of these missiles to Ukraine would trigger a “qualitatively new stage of escalation.”
“This will mean a completely new, qualitatively new stage of escalation, including in relations between Russia and the United States,” Putin emphasized.