Officials in the U.S. and some European countries have expressed concern that providing Kyiv with powerful, long-range weapons systems could permit Ukraine to hit deep into Russian territory and lead to an escalation in the three-month-long war. Russian officials say Washington’s supply of increasingly sophisticated system heightens the prospect of direct conflict between Washington and Moscow.
“We are not planning to attack Russia," Mr. Zelensky said in an interview with Newsmax that aired late Tuesday. ‘We are not fighting on their territory. We have the war on our territory."
Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of attacking border areas inside Russia, while Ukraine has denied a role in such incidents. Systems Kyiv currently operates, if fired from near Russian territory, could reach deeper into the country. Mr. Zelensky said that isn’t his goal.
“We’re not interested in the Russian Federation," he said.
Earlier on Tuesday, President Biden pledged to provide Ukraine with a guided-rocket system capable of striking targets from as far as 48 miles. Mr. Zelenksy said he wants weapons with a range of at least 75 miles.
While Ukraine’s Western allies balk at providing long-range weapons, they continue to send a variety of armaments and defensive systems.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Wednesday that Berlin will send a modern aerial defense system and anti-artillery radar to Ukraine, and Germany will support Ukraine as long as necessary.
“We will thus enable Ukraine to protect an entire large city from Russian aerial attacks," Mr. Scholz said in an address to the German parliament. “Putin must not and will not win this war."
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday that the supply of weapons to Kyiv increases the risk of direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S., the latest rebuke of Western arms deliveries to Ukraine by a Russian official.
Any arms transfers to Ukraine by Washington “increase risks of such a development," Mr. Ryabkov said in comments carried by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the weapons shipments “add fuel to the fire."
“The United States is obviously adhering to the line of fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian," he told reporters Wednesday.
Mr. Peskov also gave the first Kremlin reaction to the European Union’s move Monday to impose an oil embargo on Russia. Under the EU deal, by year-end up to 90% of previous oil imports from Russia will be terminated.
“These sanctions will of course have a negative effect for probably the entire continent—for the Europeans, for us and the entire energy market," Mr. Peskov said. “Europeans are not free from the negative effects either. They will have to get through this."
The sanctions are part of a two-pronged approach Western governments are taking in an effort to repel Russian forces militarily in the near-term while imposing longer-term costs on the country’s economy and political leadership.
The U.S. goal in sending the rocket system is to boost Ukraine’s firepower against Russian forces in the eastern Donbas region, without enabling Kyiv to expand the war into Russian territory. The rocket systems “will enable them to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield in Ukraine," Mr. Biden wrote in an opinion column in the New York Times on Tuesday, adding that the U.S. won’t try to oust Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces," Mr. Biden wrote.
The White House hasn’t said how many rocket systems will be provided. U.S. officials say that the immediate plan is to send 48 rockets and four wheeled High Mobility Artillery Rocket System launchers to Ukraine.
The U.S. and its allies have been shipping large volumes of heavy weaponry to Ukraine, including more advanced Western systems to supplement the light weapons and Soviet-era arms that were funneled into Ukraine since before the invasion started.
Mr. Zelensky said in his interview Ukraine wants longer-range weapons to free Ukrainian cities and ports. He said Kyiv won’t surrender any territory to Russia in exchange for peace despite losing terrain and soldiers daily to Moscow’s forces.
“We’re not ready to concede any of our territories, because our territories are our territories," doubling down on earlier refusals. Trading land for peace “is not something we can agree on."
Some European officials and others including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have suggested that Kyiv might achieve a cease-fire and reduce the war’s economic impact by letting Russia maintain control over territory it has occupied with military might.
Mr. Zelenksy said Ukrainians continue to pay a heavy toll defending the Donbas area.
“The situation in the east is very difficult," Mr. Zelensky said in the interview. “We are losing 60 to 100 soldiers every day and something like 500 wounded in combat."
The fighting remained concentrated around Severodonetsk, capital of the Luhansk region, which along with Donetsk makes up Donbas, where Russia is focusing its offensive after failing to take cities in central Ukraine.
On Wednesday, the governor of Luhansk, Serhiy Haidai, wrote on Telegram that Russia and its local proxies were “consolidating in the center of Severodonetsk" and had attacked a nitrogen plant, releasing toxic gases into the air. He said the Russians were also firing artillery at a plant in Lysychansk, a Ukrainian stronghold across the river from Severodonetsk.
“Given the presence of large-scale chemical production in Severodonetsk, the Russian army’s strikes there, including blind air bombing, are just madness," Mr. Zelensky said in an address late Tuesday.
In addition to losing men, Ukraine has also been gradually losing control of Severodonetsk over the past week, and has pleaded with the West that its forces needed more advanced weapons if they were to hold on to Donbas, once Ukraine’s industrial heartland, which borders Russia.
Analysts say that while Ukrainians have learned to use new weapons systems individually, they will be much more effective when they are able to use them in concert. Western governments have hoped that the steady flow of weapons to the Kyiv government could change the calculus of the battle in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian-backed leader of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Leonid Pasechnik, told the Russian state-run TASS news agency early on Tuesday that a third of Severodonetsk is controlled by separatist forces. Video from Chechen fighters allied with Russia in the city showed soldiers moving unimpeded in the city center.
The fall of Severodonetsk would put the Russians closer to their goal of controlling Donbas and give them a firmer grip on roads leading to Slovyansk and Kramatorsk, seen as the Ukrainian army’s most important redoubts in the area. Russia’s assault on Severodonetsk has come at a high price for its armed forces suffering from a lack of manpower following its failed attempt to take Kyiv.
Should Ukraine cede Severodonetsk to the Russians, Kyiv’s troops would likely fall back to Lysychansk, which overlooks Severodonetsk from across the Siverskyi Donets river.
