EU Commission: Kyiv has “the right” to strike the Russian army “even in the enemy’s territory”

Brussels – Ukraine’s military operation in Russia’s Kursk region is still ongoing, and the question is: does Kyiv have the right to launch an armed attack on
Russia’s territory to defend itself? While analysts are scrolling through the articles and interpretations of international law in search of an answer that can be neither black nor white (complex issues such as the right to self-defence, the non-use of force and its exceptions, and the proportionality of measures intersect), a clear-cut position comes instead from Brussels: “Ukraine has the right to strike the enemy wherever necessary on its own territory, but also in the enemy’s territory,” is what Peter Stano, spokesman for the EU High Representative and Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, made clear when responding to the press regarding the Union’s position on the latest developments in the war.

Reiterating that the EU “is not involved” in the conflict and that “we support Ukraine’s efforts in restoring its territorial integrity and sovereignty by rejecting Russia’s illegal aggression,” pressed by reporters at yesterday’s (Aug. 8) daily press point, Stano went further: “Ukraine is under illegal aggression, it is fighting a legitimate defensive war under international law,” and this “right to defend itself includes fighting in the enemy’s territory”. A clear-cut position that leaves no room for doubt in the Union’s executive and its European External Action Service (EEAS). All the more so when one considers that just over a month ago, on the sidelines of the European Council, the top officials of the EU institutions signed new security agreements with the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Kyiv’s military operation in the western Russian region bordering Ukraine itself began on Tuesday (Aug. 6) and has entered its fourth day of the offensive, with hundreds of soldiers and dozens of armoured vehicles fighting against the Russian army around the small town of Sudzha and now having Lipetsk in their sights. Unlike some operations carried out last year by paramilitary formations (such as the Free Russia Legion) indirectly supported by Kyiv, what is underway is an attack led by the Ukrainian army for the first time in more than two years of war. As a response, Moscow has sent soldiers and air assets, and this may be the Kyiv target: to create a diversion to relieve some of the most pressured war fronts—such as the eastern Donbas—by forcing a part of the Russian army to reorganize also in another region hitherto untouched by the war, but, more importantly, on its own national territory.