Washington will not limit Ukrainian strikes on territory it claims as its own, Celeste Wallander said

The US would have no objections to Ukrainian forces striking targets inside Crimea with American-supplied weapons, a senior defense official said on Friday.

Dr Celeste Wallander, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, was asked whether Washington supports Kiev in seizing Crimea, or at least in striking Russian targets there. The peninsula overwhelmingly voted to become part of Russia in 2014 following a Western-backed coup in Kiev.

Speaking at the Center for a New American Security, Wallander reiterated that the US “supports Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty over its internationally recognized borders, and that includes Crimea.” With this in mind, the official argued that Kiev “has the right to defend every inch of its territory.”

As long as Ukraine “identifies operational value in targeting Russian forces on Ukrainian territory… we don’t have objections and do not seek to limit Ukrainian military operations to achieve their objectives.”

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https://www.rt.com/russia/571323-us-no-objections-crimea-attack/