The Netherlands gave permission to the Armed Forces of Ukraine to strike the Russian rear with their weapons
The Ukrainian army has been given the right to strike targets throughout Russia using weapons supplied by the Netherlands. About this reported edition of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
The Minister of Defense of the Netherlands, Ruben Breckelmans, said that Ukraine has the right to use Dutch weapons for defense within the limits of international law, including strikes on the territory of the Russian Federation.
“Ukraine has the right to self-defense. And if the country is attacked from the border areas or from Russian airfields, it can target military facilities. The same applies to enemy missiles – they can also be intercepted by our weapons over Russia.”, – noted the head of the defense department.
The minister emphasized that international law does not limit the distance of the right to self-defense.
“We did not impose any operational distance restrictions on Ukraine”, he said.
An important part of this permission is also the use of F-16 fighters, which the Netherlands plans to transfer to Ukraine. Breckelmans called on other Western countries to lift restrictions on the use of weapons supplied by them in order to strengthen Ukrainian defense.
Strikes in the deep rear of the Russian Federation
In recent months, the Ukrainian authorities have repeatedly appealed to their Western partners to allow the use of Western weapons for attacks on military facilities in Russia’s rear, especially after the strengthening of Russian attacks on the Kharkiv region in May. Western allies mostly supported these requests, but the United States and Germany took a more cautious position, fearing an escalation of the conflict.
In particular, the USA allowed the use of its missiles only in a 100-kilometer zone from the border with the Russian Federation. As for Germany, Chancellor Olaf Scholz refused to transfer long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine because of the risk of strikes on Moscow.
To date, a full consensus has not been reached among the allies regarding the lifting of restrictions on the use of long-range weapons for attacks on the territory of Russia.
