Russia warns West against 'direct escalation of tension' in Ukraine conflict

The Kremlin characterized as “dangerous” comments by British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and French President Emmanuel Macron indicating their countries’ possible direct involvement in Ukraine’s strikes on Russian-occupied territory.

“This is a direct escalation of tension around the Ukrainian conflict, which could potentially pose a danger to European security, to the entire European security architecture," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday at a news briefing.

“This is where we see such a dangerous trend of escalating tension in official statements. This is a cause for our concern," he said.

Also addressing the briefing, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said, "This is the first time that a Western politician has so frankly acknowledged what has long been a well-known secret for a majority of the world's countries: that the West is waging a covert war against Russia with the hands of Ukrainians."

Russia, she added, will respond if Ukraine launches strikes against Russian territory with British weapons.

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During his visit to Kyiv on Thursday, Cameron told Reuters that Ukraine has the right to strike in self-defense. “Just as Russia is striking inside Ukraine, you can quite understand why Ukraine feels the need to make sure it's defending itself," he said.

Cameron promised 3 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) of annual military aid for Ukraine for "as long as it takes," adding Thursday that London had no objection to its weapons being used inside Russia.

In a separate interview Thursday, Macron repeated a prior observation, that he doesn’t exclude sending troops to Ukraine, an act Russia said would lead to a direct and dangerous escalation of tensions around the conflict.

Peace proposals

Zakharova also said that Russia is ready to consider ‘serious’ Ukrainian peace proposals based on what she called existing "realities" and Moscow's security concerns, adding that Ukraine must pledge to remain militarily neutral in future.

Moscow’s conditions were identical to previous ones that Ukraine has several times rejected.

Russia also warned Friday it would respond with a “devastating revenge strike" if Ukraine hits Crimea or the Crimean Bridge linking southern Russia to the Black Sea peninsula.

"The Crimean Bridge is once again in the crosshairs," Zakharova told the briefing. "Preparations for an attack on it, which is hard to believe, are now being carried out openly, with ostentatious bravado and with the absolute direct and shameless support of the collective West.”

Moscow said it believed that Ukraine — which has recently received the long-range MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACM, from the United States — was plotting to attack the bridge ahead of or on May 9, Russia’s anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which Ukraine has repeatedly attacked, is based in Crimea.

Kyiv has said that it considers illegal the construction of the road and rail bridge, which has been used in the past to move Russian troops and weaponry against Ukraine. It says it wants Crimea back.

Russia seized and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Crimea was part of the Russian Empire from 1783, and later of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, until Moscow in 1954 gifted it to what was then the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Moscow now says that decision was a mistake.

Russian strikes

On Saturday morning, Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine's Kharkiv. At least three people, including a 13-year-old child, were injured by falling debris from the downed drones, according to the regional governor, Oleh Synehubov.

In addition, the debris also set off what the Kyiv Independent described as a "large-scale fire" in an office building.

On Friday, a Russian missile struck Ukraine's central Kirovohrad region, wounding one civilian and damaging houses and infrastructure, a local official said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has borne the brunt of Russia’s intensified attacks in the recent months, barraging Ukraine’s energy grid with missiles and drones, while Kyiv is dealing with a serious shortage of air defenses.

Two people were killed Friday in a Russian attack on the city of Kurakhove, located in the eastern Donetsk region.

"Various high-rise buildings were damaged. Two people were injured, two people died," the head of the military administration, Roman Padun, said on social media.

Kurakhove is near the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the Russia-occupied main city of Donetsk.

Assault toward Chasiv Yar

Outgunned and outmanned, Ukrainian troops in the wider region are struggling against Russian forces who are pushing toward the key town of Chasiv Yar.

Ukrainian officials have said Russian forces aim to seize the hilltop town before May 9, on that key Russian WWII anniversary to give President Vladimir Putin a symbolic victory.

In an interview with Britain's The Times, Ukraine's Ground Forces Commander Oleksandr Pavliuk described a dire situation around the key city.

"We are trying everything we can do to stop the Russian plan to capture Chasiv Yar before May 9," Pavliuk was quoted as saying.

"But Russians have a 10-to-1 ratio of artillery superiority there, and total air superiority," he said.

Russia’s land gains

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said his troops had seized 547 square kilometers (211 square miles) of Ukrainian territory this year in what he called Russia's "new regions," a reference to four Ukrainian regions that Moscow says it has annexed.

Shoigu remarked in a meeting with senior military commanders Friday that Russian troops were advancing through Ukrainian strongholds in the Donetsk region and that the Ukrainian forces are retreating all along the front line.

"The Ukrainian army units are trying to cling on to individual lines, but under our onslaught they are forced to abandon their positions and retreat," he said.

Ukrainian forces have been suffering ammunition shortages, partly due to monthslong delays in U.S. aid, which were approved by President Joe Biden last week after Congress finally passed the measure.

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse.