Ukraine has denied responsibility for recent drone strikes on Moscow, described by one Russian official as the worst attack on the city since World War II, but James Cleverly has backed Kyiv’s “right” to attack Russia, anyway. The UK foreign secretary told an audience in Estonia that it would not be wrong for Ukraine to “project force beyond its borders.”
Cleverly said:
Ukraine does have the legitimate right to defend itself. It has the legitimate right to do so within its own borders, of course, but it does also have the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself …
Legitimate military targets beyond its own border are part of Ukraine’s self-defence. And we should recognise that.
Western reports have described Mr. Cleverly’s comments as a “break with Washington,” which has spoken out against military action inside Russia. One day before the strikes, however, Joe Biden stressed it was important “to give Ukraine all that it needs” in its fight against Vladimir Putin’s forces.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev responded that the UK, thanks to such remarks, and its wider support for Ukraine, should consider that its “state can also be qualified as being at war.” He added in a post on Twitter: “The UK acts as Ukraine’s ally providing it with military aid in the form of equipment and specialists, i.e., de facto is leading an undeclared war against Russia. That being the case, any of its public officials (either military, or civil, who facilitate the war) can be considered as a legitimate military target.” Constitutional expert Bruce Fein last year highlighted that the level of support for Kyiv by certain Western nations could see these labelled as “co-belligerents.”
Not wanting to be outdone, a Russian state media presenter, translated by Francis Scarr of the BBC, jibed that “in order to render Cleverly harmless, we need to, for example, make the well-known Salisbury spire fall directly on his head.”
