Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia should start producing previously banned short- and medium-range missiles, after warning Washington of the risk of “direct confrontation” over U.S. drone missions in the Black Sea.
This week, Moscow also blamed the United States for a strike on Sunday in Crimea, a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by the Russians in 2014, committed according to it by Ukraine using American ATACMS tactical missiles with a range of 300 km, which left four dead and more than 150 injured.
Russia has vowed retaliation over what it sees as Washington’s growing involvement.
The Russian president, during a televised meeting with senior officials, said Friday that his country should “start producing” missiles with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
These were previously banned under a treaty with the United States dating from the Cold War and now obsolete.
Vladimir Putin claimed that the United States had begun using such missiles during training exercises in Denmark.
“We need to react to this and make decisions about what we need to do next in this area,” he continued, saying Russia would decide “where” to deploy these weapons.
Washington withdrew from this Treaty on Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) in 2019, citing its non-compliance by Moscow. Russia then assured that it would observe a moratorium on the production of such devices if the United States did not deploy them at a distance that would allow them to reach its territory.
Several treaties concluded during the Cold War between the Soviets and Americans, intended to limit the race for nuclear weapons and ease tensions at the height of their rivalry, have ended in recent years.
– “Target designation” –
Moscow believes that the assistance provided to kyiv in terms of weapons, intelligence gathering and identification of targets on Russian territory made the United States and its allies parties to the conflict, which the Kremlin relaunched in February 2022 with a large-scale offensive in Ukraine.
American drone flights in the Black Sea “increase the likelihood of incidents in the airspace with aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which increases the risk of a direct confrontation between the (Atlantic) Alliance and the Russian Federation “, warned the Russian Defense Ministry.
According to Russian authorities, these American devices are used for “reconnaissance and target designation for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces” by the West.
The Kremlin assures that ATACMS missile launches require in particular intelligence collected by the United States.
After refusing for a long time, for fear of provoking an escalation, in recent weeks the Americans and Europeans have begun to authorize, under conditions, attacks with Western precision weapons on Russian soil to destroy sites and systems used to bomb Russia. Ukraine.
– Strikes in Ukraine –
Russian bombings also continue daily in Ukrainian localities.
Four civilians were killed and three others, including “an eight-year-old girl”, injured Friday in a strike on the small town of New York, in eastern Ukraine, according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
Eight people were also injured in a bombing in Kharkiv, the country’s second city, Governor Oleg Synegoubov said.
Another attack left one dead and six injured, including a seven-month-old baby, in Dnipro (central-east), according to regional governor Serguiï Lyssak.
High-intensity fighting continues on the front, particularly in the east, where Russia claimed Friday the capture of Rozdolivka, a village located north of the devastated city of Bakhmout.
But according to kyiv, the Ukrainian forces are in a better position thanks to the arrival of Western weapons, after months of blockage.
“The ratio of ammunition consumption was one to seven (in favor of the Russian army), today it is one to three,” a source within the general staff of the Ukrainian army told AFP.
On the diplomatic level, Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday that he was working on a new plan to end the conflict, with the aim of it being “supported by the majority” of countries. But he also vowed to continue strengthening his country’s military capabilities to impose a “just peace” on Russia.
In the evening, the Ukrainian president announced the release and return to Ukraine of ten civilians who had been taken prisoner in Russia and Belarus. Russians and Ukrainians, at war for more than two years, regularly exchange captured soldiers but the return of civilians is much rarer.
Vladimir Putin, for his part, has put forward his own solution: that Ukraine cede five eastern and southern regions and that it renounce joining NATO. De facto a demand for capitulation, rejected in kyiv as well as by the West.
In Washington, the IMF approved the payment of an additional $2.2 billion to Ukraine, as part of a $15.6 billion loan, hailing the “solid performance” of its economy despite “conditions difficult”.
