The president Vladimir Putin said, this Thursday (21), that the war in Ukraine is escalating to become a global conflict after the United States and the United Kingdom allow the Ukrainians to use weapons produced by them to target Russia and warned the West that Moscow can counterattack.
Russia, Putin said, responded to the US and UK missile use by firing a new type of medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile at a Ukrainian military facility.
More attacks could occur, Putin warned, adding that civilians would be warned in advance in case of further attacks with these weapons.
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Following approval from US President Joe Biden’s administration, Ukraine struck Russia with six US-made ATACMS missiles on November 19 and with British Storm Shadow and US HIMARS missiles on November 21, Putin said.
“Since that moment, as we have repeatedly emphasized, a regional conflict in Ukraine, previously provoked by the West, has acquired elements of a global character,” Putin said in an address to the nation broadcast on state television after 8 p.m. Moscow time.
The United States, Putin said, is pushing the world towards global conflict.
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“And, in the event of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will also respond in a decisive and equivalent manner,” he added.
Putin stated that the Ukrainian ATACMS missile attack failed to cause significant damage. The Storm Shadow attack in the Kursk region on Nov. 21, however, was aimed at a command point and resulted in deaths and injuries, he said.
“The use of such weapons by the enemy is not capable of changing the course of military operations in the area of special military operation,” Putin said.
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“We consider that we have the right to use our weapons against the military installations of countries that allow their weapons to be used against our installations,” Putin said.
“If anyone still doubts this, they are mistaken – there will always be an answer.”
Russia controls 18% of Ukraine, including all of Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, 80% of Donbas — the Donetsk and Luhansk regions — and more than 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well as less than 3% of the Kharkiv region and a piece of the Mykolaiv region.
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Ukraine and the West say the 2022 invasion was an imperial-style attempt to seize sovereign Ukrainian territory and fear Russia could attack a NATO member if Putin wins in Ukraine.
“I believe that the United States made a mistake by unilaterally destroying the treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in 2019 under a trumped-up pretext,” Putin said, referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF, in English).
The United States formally withdrew from the landmark 1987 INF Treaty with Russia in 2019, claiming that Moscow was violating the agreement, a charge rejected by the Kremlin.
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