WATCH: State Department responds to Russia on Patriot missiles

The State Department hit back after the Kremlin warned Washington that any Patriot systems and U.S. personnel deployed to Ukraine will be a legitimate target for Russia.

Watch the briefing in the player above.

State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters “the only provocative measures that have been taken over the course of this entire conflict are being made by Russia.”

“Over the nine months of this conflict, Russia has struck more than 200 targets relating to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, threatening to freeze, to starve and force Ukrainian civilians from their homes in the midst of winter,” he said.

Russia, which has suffered humiliating military setbacks in recent months, has called up 300,000 reservists to compensate for its heavy battlefield losses. Putin said last week that half of them were still being trained at firing ranges away from the front lines.

Since October, Moscow has particularly focused on pummeling energy facilities and other key infrastructure with missile and drone strikes in an apparent hope of breaking the will of the Ukrainians and forcing Kyiv to negotiate on Russia’s terms. On Friday, Russian forces launched a new barrage of missiles at several cities, Ukrainian officials said, resulting in significant power cuts.

WATCH: Indo-Pacific Commander discusses rising tensions with China, future of the region

The State Department is also applauding Japan after the island nation adopted a national security strategy declaring plans to possess preemptive strike capability and cruise missiles within years to give itself more offensive footing against threats from neighboring China and North Korea.

It’s a major break from its strictly self-defense-only postwar principle.

“Japan’s new documents reshape the ability of our alliance to promote peace and protect the rules based world order, not just in the Indo-Pacific, but around the world as well,” Patel said.

With China, North Korea and Russia directly to its west and north, Japan “faces the severest and most complicated national security environment since the end of the war,” the strategy said, referring to World War II. It named China as “the biggest strategic challenge” to Japan’s effort toward ensuring the peace, safety and stability for itself and the international society.

Under the strategy, Japan’s defense spending through 2027 will increase to about 2 percent of Japan’s GDP to total some 43 trillion yen ($320 billion), 1.6-times that of the current five-year total.