Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Thursday that Moscow arrogates the right to attack military targets of countries that provide weapons to Ukraine to bomb Russian territory.
“We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military installations of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our installations,” Putin said, adding that Russia “will respond with equal determination” to any “escalation of aggressive actions.”
In addition, he announced on Thursday that his forces attacked Ukraine with a new medium-range ballistic missileafter a shot was fired against the city of Dnipro.
“Our engineers called him ‘Oreshnik,'” Putin declared in a speech to the nation, adding that the attack targeted “a site of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex.”
“In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21 of this year, the Russian Armed Forces launched a combined attack against one of the facilities of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex,” noted the Russian leader.
He added that in this way it was tested in combat conditions “one of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems”, which is called Oreshnik.
The Ukrainian Air Force initially reported an attack against the Dnipro region with a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile, which was not confirmed by either Russia or the United States.
In the message, which lasted 8 minutes, Putin confirmed the recent attacks on Russian territory with American long-range missiles. ATACMS and British Storm Shadowwhich were directed against the military infrastructure of the border regions of Bryansk and Kursk.
According to the Russian leader, the country’s anti-aircraft defenses repelled these attacks and they did not allow the enemy to achieve their objectives.
At the same time, he insisted that the use of long-range weapons by kyiv after receiving the respective Western authorization will not be able to influence the fate of the war.
Putin assured that Russian forces are advancing “along the entire line of contact” in Ukraine and all the objectives that Moscow set for itself “they will be overtaken.”
Putin, who approved this week the new Russian nuclear doctrine, which allows responses with atomic weapons in the event of attacks with conventional weapons, warned at the time that the use of long-range Western weapons against Russian territory will mean that NATO is in combat with Russia.