Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow vows to fire more ballistic missiles as Putin hints at striking West
Putin vowed to launch more intermediate-range ballistic missiles targeting Ukraine
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Your support makes all the difference.Moscow has vowed to continue testing experimental hypersonic missiles as Vladimir Putin threatened to strike the West in a coded message.
Putin warned that Russia would continue to carry out tests of the “Oreshnik” intermediate-range ballistic missiles in “combat conditions” following a devastating strike on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
“We will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation,” the Russian leader said.
He added that Thursday’s attack was a direct response to Ukrainian forces striking Russia with US and British long-range missiles - something Moscow sees as an escalation of the conflict.
“We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities,” he said on Friday.
He claimed the new missile could be fitted with several conventional warheads and could be as devastating as strategic nuclear weapons.
Ukrainian air defence forces said the missile – which has a range of more than 3,400 miles and can be used to carry nuclear warheads – was fired from Russia’s Astrakhan region, on the Caspian Sea.
Despite the Kremlin’s rhetoric, Russian officials notified the United States about Thursday’s attack 30 minutes before launching the missile.
Threat of global conflict is real, Polish PM says
There is a real risk of a global conflict breaking out over the Ukraine war, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk warned.
Mr Tusk said the conflict was taking on “dramatic proportions” with the threat of global conflict “serious and real”.
It comes after Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at a the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday.
“The war in the east is entering a decisive phase, we feel that the unknown is approaching,” Tusk told a teachers conference.
“The conflict is taking on dramatic proportions. The last few dozen hours have shown that the threat is serious and real when it comes to global conflict.”
On Thursday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said the strike was a response to the US and UK allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons.
Pictured: Russian military volunteers patrol Kursk
Putin sends a missile message to the West: 'Back off'
“Putin is saying to the West stop - halt - back off,” Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, said.
“The signal Putin is sending to the world is that we consider these strikes as the direct entry of the United States and Britain into a war against Russia,” he said.
“But we are not responding with all our might right now because these strikes against Russia will not change the outcome of the war.”
Comment: It’s not yet World War Three – but ‘World War Z’ has begun
It’s not yet World War Three – but ‘World War Z’ has begun
Joe Biden granting Ukraine permission to use Nato-supplied rockets to attack military targets within Russia is an escalation of a European conflict now past its 1,000th day – and, though it is far from being a global conflict, the West is effectively now at war with Putin’s forces, says Mark Almond
Comment: Nobody can stop the juggernaut of war – not even Putin
Nobody can stop the juggernaut of war – not even Putin
Forget Donald Trump’s ‘secret’ peace deal and internal Washington politics, let alone the Kremlin’s machinations – the war in Ukraine has taken on its own destructive dynamic, warns Mark Almond
Ukraine stepping up air defence development, says Zelensky
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky says his country is working on developing new types of air defence to counter “new risks” following Russia’s deployment of a new medium-range missile.
Mr Zelensky, in his nightly video address, said testing a new weapon for purposes of terror in another country was an international crime and issued a new call for a worldwide “serious response” to keep Russia from expanding the war.
“On my behalf, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine is already holding meetings with our partners regarding new air defence systems capable of protecting lives from new risks,” he said.
“When someone starts using other countries not only for terror, but also for testing their new missiles through acts of terror, then this is clearly an international crime.”
'Axis of China, Russia and North Korea greatest threat since Second World War’
The emerging axis of China, Russia and North Korea has created “the most serious and dangerous challenge” for the West since the Second World War, according to a former top US military chief.
General Jack Keane, a retired four-star general and former vice-chief of the US Army, told The Times: “China, Russia and North Korea are working effectively together. What has happened is that they have perceived us, the US, to be weak and that we have lost the political will to confront them.”
Gen Keane, one of the most influential military figures in Washington and a Donald Trump ally, said: “At the moment there are 10,000 North Korean troops who have joined the Russians.
“But do we have the beginnings of a pipeline of North Korean troops coming to support Russia, another country fighting alongside Russia to try and overthrow Ukraine? This is the biggest escalation of the war.”
He added: “The pressure on [President] Zelensky is enormous. This is not about giving up the 18 per cent of territory the Russians have seized, it’s about human lives. The Ukrainians living in these areas will be subjugated under Russian domination. This is what Zelensky cannot allow to happen. He needs leverage so that he gives up less territory. That’s why we have to give him everything he needs.”
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Putin vows more ballistic missile strikes
Vladimir Putin has vowed to launch more strikes using an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile.
The Russian president disputed US claims that his country possessed only a few of the high-speed ballistic missiles, saying that the military had enough to continue to test them in “combat conditions”.
None the less, he said Moscow would ramp up production of the new “unstoppable” hypersonic ballistic missile it fired at Ukraine on Thursday.
He told a defence conference on Friday tests of the missile system had been passed, adding: “As has been said already, we’ll be continuing these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and nature of threats being posed to Russia’s security, especially considering that we have enough of such items, such systems ready for use in stock.”
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