Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned NATO alliance leaders that a move to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range Western missiles to strike deep inside his country would be considered an act of war.

The Russian president said Western support for Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russia would put his country and NATO “at war.”

The head of NATO’s military committee says that Ukraine has the solid legal and military right to strike deep inside Russia to gain combat advantage, reflecting the beliefs of a number of U.S. allies.

Over the weekend, the military committee of the NATO alliance met to plot the next stage in its war against Russia, with the Alliance’s top military leader calling for Ukraine to be allowed to use NATO weapons to strike inside Russia.

Ukraine would have a good military reason to strike deeper into Russia using Western weapons, a senior NATO military official said on Saturday.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is sceptical of Russian leader Vladimir Putin's threats, which come amid discussions about allowing Ukraine to launch long-range missiles deep into Russia. Source: Stoltenberg in an interview with The Times,

On Wednesday, the Kremlin condemned comments by outgoing NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg as “dangerous”, Reuters reports. Stoltenberg had suggested that allowing Ukraine to use Western long-range missiles to strike Russian territory would not trigger an escalation from Moscow.

The Kremlin on Wednesday described as "dangerous" comments by Jens Stoltenberg, the outgoing head of NATO, that a decision by the West to allow Ukraine to use Western long-range weapons to strike Russia would not be a red line that would prompt an escalation by Moscow.

Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, has stated that NATO's refusal to take Vladimir Putin's statements seriously regarding the supposed consequences of allowing Ukraine to attack Russian territory with long-range Western weapons is "provocative and dangerous".