A propagandist dubbed the "Iron Doll of Putin TV" due to her slavish devotion to Russian President Vladimir Putin is panicking over the United States delivering long-range missiles to Ukraine.
U.S. defense officials announced on Wednesday that President Joe Biden secretly authorized the shipment of a significant number of Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) of Ukraine in February, shortly before the president announced a $300 million aid package in mid-March.
A larger shipment of the long-range missiles and an assortment of much-needed military equipment is expected to be delivered soon, following the recent approval of an additional $61 billion in Ukraine aid by Congress.
During a broadcast of the Russia-1 program 60 Minutes on Wednesday, Putin propagandist Olga Skabeyeva reacted to the development by warning that "an enormous territory of our country" was under threat, according to a report from The Kyiv Post.
Skabeyeva noted that the range of the U.S. missiles meant that "the Ukrainians now can reach" settlements located within Russia, including Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk and Rostov-on-Don.
The Putin propagandist also pointed out that the missiles could reach targets in parts of Ukraine that Russia claims to be its territory, including the illegally-annexed Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.
Skabeyeva went on to suggest that all of the weapons in the U.S. Ukraine aid package had already been delivered to Kyiv, despite deliveries officially beginning after Biden signed the aid into law on Wednesday.
"American sources say the weapons will be delivered only by the end of the week," Skabeyeva said, according to a translation that Ukrainian internal affairs adviser Anton Gerashchenko shared to X, formerly Twitter.
"But we see every time that before announcing military aid, the Americans, as a rule, deliver this aid to Ukraine," she continued. "So, we assume that everything that is due from the $61 billion military aid package is already on the territory of our enemy."
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Russian military via email on Thursday night.
Ukraine has been using a shorter-range cluster variant of ATACMS since October 2023, when strikes on Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine dealt damage to two Russian military bases and a number of helicopters.
The newer shipments of long-range missiles, which are are launched using U.S.-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), are capable of hitting targets approximately 186 miles away.
Admiral Christopher Grady, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in recent remarks to the Associated Press that the long-range missiles would be used by Ukraine to strike Russian targets away from the front lines. Grady called the decision to send Kyiv the weapons "very well-considered."
The Kremlin suggested on Wednesday that shipments of long-range ATACMS would force Russia to create a larger "buffer zone" by pushing Ukrainian forces further back, according to Reuters.
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