Russia on Thursday denounced Western promises to supply Ukraine with heavy tanks, saying it saw the development as evidence of direct and growing U.S. and European involvement in the conflict.
The Kremlin was reacting for the first time to announcements by the United States and Germany on Wednesday that they would arm Ukraine with dozens of battle tanks in its fight against Russia.
"There are constant statements from European capitals and Washington that the sending of various weapons systems to Ukraine, including tanks, in no way signifies the involvement of these countries or the alliance in hostilities in Ukraine," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"We categorically disagree with this, and in Moscow, everything that the alliance and the capitals I mentioned are doing is seen as direct involvement in the conflict. We see that this is growing."
U.S. President Joe Biden said the tanks pose "no offensive threat" to Russia and that they were needed to help the Ukrainians "improve their ability to maneuver in open terrain."
Ukraine has been seeking hundreds of modern tanks to form what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called a "fist of freedom" that could give its troops the firepower to break Russian defensive lines and reclaim occupied territory in the south and east. Until now, both Ukraine and Russia have been relying primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks.
Russia, which launched the war by invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, has increasingly portrayed it as a confrontation with NATO.
"The course of the special military operation in Ukraine shows that the U.S. and NATO intend to continue making efforts to drag out this military conflict and have become its participants," Nikolai Patrushev, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin and secretary of his Security Council, was quoted as saying on Thursday.
Interfax news agency quoted him as saying that "even with the end of the 'hot phase' of the conflict in Ukraine, the Anglo-Saxon world will not stop the proxy war against Russia and its allies."
Moscow, in the meanwhile, launched a rush-hour barrage of missiles toward Ukraine on Thursday, killing at least one person.
The Ukrainian military said it had shot down all 24 drones sent overnight by Russia, including 15 around the capital, with no damage reported.
But soon afterward, air raid alarms sounded across Ukraine as people were heading to work, and senior officials said air defenses were shooting down incoming missiles.
In the capital, crowds of people took cover in underground metro stations. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said one person had been killed and two wounded when a missile hit nonresidential buildings in the south of the city.
Kyiv's military administration said more than 15 missiles fired at Kyiv had been shot down but urged people to remain in shelters.
DTEK, Ukraine's largest private energy producer, said it was conducting emergency power shutdowns in Kyiv, the surrounding region and also the regions of Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk because of the imminent danger.
In Odessa, the Black Sea port was designated a "World Heritage in Danger" site on Wednesday by the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, Russian missile strikes damaged energy infrastructure, the district military administration said.
Western analysts say the attacks on Ukraine's cities are more an attempt to break morale than a strategic campaign.
Both sides are expected to mount new ground offensives come the spring, and Ukraine has been seeking hundreds of modern tanks in the hope of using them to break Russian defensive lines and recapture occupied territory in the south and east.
Both Ukraine and Russia have so far relied primarily on Soviet-era T-72 tanks.
Since invading Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year, Russia has shifted its publicly stated goals from "denazifying" and "demilitarizing" its neighbor to confronting a purportedly aggressive and expansionist U.S.-led NATO alliance.
The Russian invasion has killed thousands of civilians, forced millions from their homes and reduced entire cities to rubble.
The heaviest fighting, for now, is around Bakhmut, a town in eastern Ukraine with a pre-war population of 70,000 that has seen some of the most brutal combat of the war.
Ukraine's military said Russia was attacking "with the aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region and regardless of its own casualties".
The Russian-installed governor of Donetsk said Wednesday that units of Russia's Wagner contract militia were moving forward inside Bakhmut, with fighting on the outskirts and in neighborhoods recently held by Ukraine.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.
