Ukraine says it will not strike Russian territory with new missiles

KYIV (Reuters) – Ukraine will not use longer-range weapons pledged by the United States to hit Russian territory and will only target Russian units in occupied Ukrainian territory, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Sunday.

The United States confirmed on Friday that a new rocket that would double Ukraine’s strike range was included in a $2.175 billion U.S. military aid package to help Kyiv fight back Russian forces.

“We always tell our partners officially that we will not use weapons supplied by foreign partners to fire on Russian territory. We only fire on Russian units on temporarily occupied Ukrainian territory,” Reznikov told reporters at a news conference.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk and Felix Hoske; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Frank Jack Daniel)