JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
This weekend saw a major change in the Biden administration's policies toward the war in Ukraine. As NPR reported, the U.S. would now authorize Ukraine's use of Western-donated long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia. Today that move prompted Russia to warn of a major escalation with the West. Joining us from Moscow is NPR's Charles Maynes. Hey there.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Hi there.
SUMMERS: So Charles, if you could, just start by telling us what the Kremlin is saying.
MAYNES: Yeah. Now, interestingly, Russia says it has yet to receive official notice from the Biden administration about this decision to provide these long-range Western rockets to Ukraine to strike targets in Russia. But speaking today, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, if the media reports were true, that essentially this decision amounted to a new spiral of tensions with Washington. You know, Peskov also said that Moscow's position here was well-known. He pointed to statements by President Vladimir Putin earlier this September in which Putin warned that he viewed any such move as changing the nature of the conflict in Ukraine. Let's listen.
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PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
MAYNES: So at the time, Putin argued that Ukraine's military could only attack deep inside Russia if NATO troops provided satellite imagery, oversaw targeting and launch systems. And it would mean, Putin added, that the U.S. and its allies were now at war with Russia, in his view, directly.
SUMMERS: And what would Russia then do? Did Putin make that clear?
MAYNES: Well, Putin said Russia would respond accordingly to the threat it faced, so he's kind of leaving us guessing. That said, he did ease the rules on Russia's nuclear doctrine, essentially equating a conventional attack on Russia by a country supported by a nuclear power as essentially one and the same. This is clearly intended as a message to Ukraine's Western backers. You know, Putin also talked about a Russian mirror response when it comes to the West. He does so often. So Putin has mentioned providing similar advanced weapons to adversaries of the United States and its allies. And Sergei Markov, a former Putin adviser now with the Center for Political Studies in Moscow, tells me you can expect that same logic to apply to Western military installations.
SERGEI MARKOV: On practical level, I think we should expect rocket missiles attack against American military based on the territory of Poland, Romania and Germany.
MAYNES: So Juana, clearly there's a hawkish contingency here in Moscow whose goal has been to make the West stand down or at least limit its support for Ukraine from the very beginning.
SUMMERS: And, Charles, this decision comes just two months before President Biden leaves office and before President-elect Trump returns to the White House, saying he can negotiate with Moscow for peace in Ukraine. How does that dynamic play into this?
MAYNES: Well, you know, many in Russia were frankly expecting Biden would try to undermine Trump's efforts to end the war in Ukraine because Biden feared it would be on Moscow's terms. But if Donald Trump is the deal-maker he claims to be, this decision by the Biden White House, oddly enough, provides an opportunity, says Dmitry Stefanovich of the Center for International Security at the Primakov Institute here in Moscow.
DIMITRY STEFANOVICH: On the one hand, of course, outgoing Democratic administration is taking very significant steps to make it harder to reconcile with Russia. But on the other hand, it can be - and probably it will be - used by the Trump administration as a bargaining chip.
MAYNES: In other words, something Trump can offer the Kremlin right off the bat.
SUMMERS: NPR's Charles Maynes in Moscow. Thank you.
MAYNES: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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