“Ukraine and its NATO allies will receive a response of such destructive force that the alliance itself simply will be unable to refrain from involvement in the conflict,” Medvedev wrote on Telegram in response to reports that Western countries supposedly approved the use of the long-range weapons that they supplied to Ukraine against Russian territory.

The head of the Defense Committee of the State Duma (lower house of parliament), Andrei Kartapólov, said that Moscow would respond in an asymmetric but sensitive manner to the use of Western weapons in Ukrainian attacks against targets in the territory of the Russian Federation.

On Thursday, the US State Department confirmed that President Joe Biden authorized the use of US weapons by Ukraine for counterbattery fire against the Russian offensive on Ukraine’s Kharkov region, but not against targets inside Russia.

Kartapolov declared that the decision “will not in any way affect” the progress of the special military operation. “Yes, it will entail threats for them. If they increase the degree of escalation, we will respond. Asymmetrically, but sensitively,” the parliamentarian warned.

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