On Monday, those wishes were echoed by Dmytro Kuleba, the foreign minister, who told his Estonian counterpart that Ukraine was pressing its allies “on expanding the scope of its application”.
“It is not 100 per cent, you know, clearance. It comes with some rules that need to be followed,” he said at a press conference.
‘Don’t underestimate the rebuff’
Ukraine has argued that in not allowing it to fire long-range weapons into Russia, its allies are hamstringing its defence.
Mr Zelensky said: “So they have these weapons there and they do not remove them because they know that Ukraine cannot target them with Western weaponry even if they fire against us.”
Ukraine’s supporters fear striking inside Russia will drag them closer to direct conflict with Moscow.
Mr Ryabkov warned the US to take a more serious approach to conflict, risking miscalculation if they don’t.
“I urge these figures [in the US] … to spend some of their time, which they apparently spend on some kind of video games, judging by the lightness of their approach, on studying what was said in detail by Putin,” Mr Ryabkov said.
“I would like to warn American leaders against miscalculations that could have fatal consequences. For unknown reasons, they underestimate the seriousness of the rebuff they may receive,” he added.
Vladimir Putin said the West would be directly involved in any use of its weapons by Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia, because such attacks would require its satellite, intelligence and military help.
Attacks over the border have stepped up dramatically in recent weeks after Russian forces launched a renewed ground offensive into Ukraine’s north-east.
Ukraine has responded with attacks of its own. Among the most recent was one with drones that destroyed a convoy of 15 Russian trucks, according to footage recorded by the brigades involved in the attack.
On Monday, Mr Kuleba said Russia was trying to dissuade countries from participating in a Ukraine peace summit to be held in Switzerland later this month.
He said Russia was aiming to discredit the summit publicly, convince countries not to participate and urge those intent on going to send low-level representatives.
