Putin says war in Ukraine is going global, World News

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday (Nov 21) that the war in Ukraine was escalating into a global conflict after the US and UK allowed Ukraine to strike Russia with their weapons, and warned the West that Moscow could retaliate.

Russia, Putin said, responded to the use of US and British missiles by firing a new type of medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile at a Ukrainian military installation. More could follow, Putin warned. He said civilians would be warned before further strikes with such weapons.

Following the approval of President Joe Biden’s administration, Ukraine hit Russia with six US-made ATACMS on Tuesday and with British Storm Shadow and US-made HIMARS missiles on Thursday, Putin said.

“Since that moment, as I have repeatedly emphasized, a regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the West acquired elements of a global character,” Putin said in an address to the nation broadcast on state television after 8 p.m. Moscow time (1700 GMT). .

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The United States, Putin said, is pushing the world toward a global conflict.

“And in the event of escalation of aggressive actions, we will also respond decisively and in a mirror manner,” he said.

Putin said the Ukrainian ATACMS missile attack failed to cause any serious damage. But Thursday’s Storm Shadow attack on the Kursk region was aimed at a command post and resulted in deaths and injuries, Putin said.

“The enemy’s use of such weapons is not capable of changing the course of military actions in the area of ​​the special military operation,” Putin said.

“We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military installations of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our installations,” Putin said. “If anyone else doubts this, then they are wrong – there will always be an answer.”

Russia controls 18 percent of Ukraine, including all of Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014, 80 percent of Donbas – the Donetsk and Lugansk regions – and more than 70 percent of Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, as well as just under three percent from Kharkiv region and a strip from Mykolaiv region.

Ukraine and the West say the 2022 invasion was an imperial-style attempt to seize sovereign Ukrainian territory and fear Russia may try to attack a NATO member one day if Putin wins in Ukraine.

Putin said Moscow had tested a new non-nuclear medium-range hypersonic ballistic known as the “Oreshnik” (hazelnut), firing it at a missile and defense enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, where the Pivdenmash space and missile company , known as Yuzhmash by the Russians, is based.

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He said the attack on the enterprise was successful.

Russia, he added, was developing short- and medium-range missiles in response to the planned production and subsequent deployment by the United States of medium- and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Far East.

“I think the United States made a mistake by unilaterally destroying the treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in 2019 under an exaggerated pretext,” Putin said, referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF). ) Treaty.

The United States formally withdrew from the 1987 Treaty of Reference (INF) with Russia in 2019 after saying Moscow was violating the accord, a charge the Kremlin denied.

Putin imposed a unilateral moratorium on the development of missiles previously banned by the INF treaty. He said Russia’s future actions would depend on the West’s actions — and threats against Russia.

“Let me remind you that Russia has voluntarily and unilaterally committed not to deploy medium- and shorter-range missiles until such American weapons appear in any region of the world.”

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