KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Joe Biden’s decision to let Ukraine strike targets inside Russia with U.S.-supplied long-range missiles was met with ominous warnings from Moscow, a hint of menace from Kyiv and nods of approval from some Western allies.
Biden’s shift in policy added an uncertain and potentially crucial new factor to the war on the eve of its 1,000-day milestone.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Moscow-appointed head of Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Yevgeny Balitsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, police officers evacuate an injured resident following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a police officer, right, evacuates an elderly resident following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish the fire following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish the fire following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
News of Biden's change came on the day a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy, a city in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people, including two children, and injuring 84 others.
On Monday, another Russian missile attack started fires in two apartment blocks in Odesa, in southern Ukraine. At least eight people were killed and many more were injured, Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksii Honcharenko said in a video he posted on Telegram from the site of the attack.
Washington is easing limits on what Ukraine can strike with U.S.-made weaponry, U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Sunday, after months of ruling out such a move over fears of escalating the conflict and bringing about a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO.
The scope of the new firing guidelines isn’t clear. But the change came after the U.S., South Korea and NATO said recently that North Korean troops are in Russia and apparently are being deployed to help the Russian army drive Ukrainian troops out of Russia’s Kursk border region.
Russia is also slowly pushing Ukraine’s outnumbered army backward in the eastern Donetsk region. It has also conducted a devastating and deadly aerial campaign against civilian areas in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday referred journalists to a statement made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in September, in which he said allowing Ukraine to target Russia would significantly raise the stakes in the conflict.
It would change “the very nature of the conflict dramatically,” Putin said at the time. “This will mean that NATO countries — the United States and European countries — are at war with Russia.”
Peskov claimed that Western countries supplying long-range weapons also provide targeting services to Kyiv. “This fundamentally changes the modality of their involvement in the conflict,” Peskov said.
Last June, Putin warned that Russia could provide long-range weapons to others to strike Western targets in response to NATO allies allowing Ukraine to use their arms to attack Russian territory. He also reaffirmed Moscow’s readiness to use nuclear weapons if it sees a threat to its sovereignty.
President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office in about two months' time, has raised uncertainty about whether his administration would continue the United States’ vital military support for Ukraine. He has also vowed to quickly end the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave a muted response to the approval that he and his government have been requesting of Biden for more than a year.
“Today, much is being said in the media about us receiving permission for the relevant actions,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.
“But strikes are not made with words. Such things are not announced. The missiles will speak for themselves,” he said.
The foreign minister of NATO member Lithuania, Gabrielius Landsbergis, said he’s not “opening the champagne” yet as it remains unclear exactly what restrictions have been lifted and whether Ukraine has enough of the U.S. weapons to make a difference.
Margus Tsahkna, the foreign minister of Estonia which is another Baltic country that fears a military threat from Russia, said easing restrictions on Ukraine was “a good thing.”
“We have been saying that from the beginning — that no restrictions must be put on the military support,” he said at a meeting of senior European Union diplomats in Brussels. “And we need to understand that situation is more serious (than) it was even maybe like a couple of months ago.”
Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to Moscow-appointed head of Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, Yevgeny Balitsky during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, police officers evacuate an injured resident following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, a police officer, right, evacuates an elderly resident following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish the fire following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Service, firefighters extinguish the fire following a Russian rocket attack that hit a multi-storey apartment building in Sumy, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Typhoon Man-yi left at least seven people dead in a landslide, destroyed houses and displaced large numbers of villagers before blowing away from the northern Philippines, worsening the crisis wreaked by multiple back-to-back storms, officials said Monday.
Man-yi was one of the strongest of the six major storms to hit the northern Philippines in less than a month and had sustained winds of up to 195 kilometers (125 miles) per hour when it slammed into the eastern island province of Catanduanes on Saturday night.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In Manila and offered his prayers, announcing an additional $1 million in humanitarian aid for typhoon victims. He told Marcos he has authorized U.S. troops to help Filipino forces provide lifesaving aid.
Torrential rains and fierce wind unleashed by Man-yi set off a landslide early Monday in the northern town of Ambaguio in Nueva Vizcaya province that buried a house and killed seven people, including children, and injured three others inside, regional police chief Brig. Gen. Antonio P. Marallag Jr. said.
Army troops, police and villagers were scrambling to search for three other people who were believed to have been entombed in the avalanche of mud, boulders and uprooted trees, Marallag said.
Disaster response officials said they were checking if the deaths of two villagers in a motorcycle accident and an electrocution were directly related to Man-yi’s onslaught so they could be added to the overall death toll. They said a separate search was underway for a couple and their child after their shanty was swept away in rampaging rivers in northern Nueva Ecija province.
More than a million people were affected by the typhoon and two previous storms, including nearly 700,000 who fled their homes and moved to emergency shelters or relatives' homes, according to the Official of Civil Defense.
Nearly 8,000 houses were damaged or destroyed and more than 100 cities and towns were hit by power outages due to toppled electric posts, it said.
In the worst-hit province of Camarines, officials pleaded for additional help after fierce winds and rain damaged more houses and cut off electricity and water supplies in the entire province, along with cellphone connections in many areas, provincial information officer Camille Gianan said.
Welfare officials transported food aid, drinking water and other help but more is needed over the coming months, Gianan said. Many villagers will need construction materials to rebuild their houses, she said.
“They have not recovered from the previous storms when the super typhoon hit,” Gianan told The Associated Press. “It’s been one calamity after another.”
The rare number of back-to-back storms and typhoons that lashed Luzon — the country's largest and most populous island — in just three weeks left more than 160 people dead, affected 9 million people and caused such extensive damage to communities, infrastructure and farmlands that the Philippines may have to import more rice, a staple food.
In an emergency meeting as Man-yi approached, Marcos asked his Cabinet and provincial officials to brace for “the worst-case scenario."
At least 26 domestic airports and two international airports were briefly shut and inter-island ferry and cargo services were suspended due to rough seas, stranding thousands of passengers and commuters. Most transport services have now resumed, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippine and the coast guard.
The U.S., Manila’s treaty ally, along with Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei provided cargo aircraft and other storm aid to help the government’s overwhelmed disaster-response agencies. Last month, the first major storm, Trami, left scores of people dead after dumping one to two months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours in several towns.
The Philippines is battered by about 20 typhoons and storms each year. It’s often hit by earthquakes and has more than a dozen active volcanoes, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
A man walks past roof sheets suspended on electric wires blown by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)
A resident checks belongings from his damaged home that was blown off by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)
A resident checks his damaged home that was blown off by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)
Motorists pass by toppled trees caused by strong winds from Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)
Motorists ride past a part of a roof suspended on electric wires blown by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, Philippines, Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)
Motorists ride past a part of a roof suspended on electric wires blown by strong winds caused by Typhoon Man-yi along a street in the municipality of Baler, Aurora province, northeastern Philippines Monday, Nov. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Noel Celis)
In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, toppled trees caused by Typhoon Man-yi block a road in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
This photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, shows damaged houses caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
This photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, shows damaged structure caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, residents try to fix their damaged homes caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, a resident recovers belongings from their damaged homes caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, a resident stands beside a damaged house caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
In this photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, residents try to fix their damaged homes caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
This photo provided by the MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes, shows damaged houses caused by Typhoon Man-yi in Viga, Catanduanes province, northeastern Philippines Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024. (MDRRMO Viga Catanduanes via AP)
