Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday in an address to the nation that the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global character”, blaming Westerners who authorized the use of American and European missiles on Russian soil.
“From the moment (these missiles were fired at Russia), and as we had repeatedly emphasized (beforehand), the conflict provoked by the West in Ukraine took on the elements of a (conflict ) of a global nature,” said the Russian president, affirming however that the Western missile strikes fired by Ukraine towards Russian territory had failed.
“We consider ourselves within our rights to use our weapons against the military installations of countries that authorize the use of their weapons against our installations. And in the event of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond equally strongly,” he also said.
Vladimir Putin also announced that Russian forces struck Ukraine with a new medium-range ballistic missile, after a strike on the city of Dnipro which did not carry a nuclear charge. “Our engineers called it Orechnik “, he said. According to him, this strike targeted “a site of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex”.