Kiev will decide on a missile strike on the territory of the Russian Federation only if Russia starts a full-scale conflict against Ukraine. Such a statement was made on October 29 by the freelance adviser to the head of the office of the Ukrainian president, the press secretary of the Kiev delegation in the Trilateral Contact Group on Donbass, Alexey Arestovich.
"This statement should not be understood as a threat to civilians in Russia or Moscow. No one is going to fire on residential areas. If this happens, then on one condition — Russia has launched a full-scale military conflict against Ukraine. And then we will hit legitimate military targets, including on the territory of Russia. But only if there is a full-scale conflict," he said on the Ukraine 24 TV channel.
Earlier, on October 24, Arestovich said that the actions of the Russian authorities lead to the fact that in the foreseeable future Ukrainian missiles may be aimed at Moscow as a parity.
Later, he explained that these words were not a threat to Russia, the emphasis was placed on the defensive nature of the country's state policy.
As the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, noted, the statements of Ukrainian politicians about the readiness to launch a missile strike on the Russian Federation and the outbreak of war cause concern. According to her, anti-Russian statements on a variety of subjects have long been in fashion in Ukraine.
Military expert Vladislav Shurygin, in an interview with Izvestia, pointed out that Ukrainian missiles do not pose a strategic threat. He is convinced that the APU missiles aimed at Moscow are the same as a gun held to his own forehead.
Deputy of the State Duma of the VII convocation, political scientist Ruslan Balbek, in turn, called the statement of Arestovich pathetic intimidation. He stressed that Ukraine's missile program is a cloning of Soviet developments.
Relations between Russia and Ukraine became complicated after a coup d'etat took place in Ukraine in 2014. Kiev launched a military operation against Donbass, whose residents did not agree with the results of the change of power, and the Crimean authorities decided to hold a referendum on reunification with Russia. As a result of the referendum, 96.77% of Crimean voters and 95.6% of Sevastopol residents voted for the peninsula's entry into the Russian Federation. Despite this, Kiev considers the peninsula its temporarily occupied territory. At the same time, Moscow has repeatedly stated that the issue of ownership of the subject is closed forever.
