Moscow promises ‘response’ after Ukrainian Western missile strike

(Moscow) The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday accused Ukraine of having carried out a strike the day before against a Russian factory using Western missiles, promising that it would “not go unanswered”.

“These actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western supervisors, will not go unanswered,” the ministry threatened in a statement.

According to this source, six American ATACMS missiles and four British Storm Shadow missiles were used on Wednesday by the Ukrainian army against the “Kombinat Kamenskiï” factory located in the Russian region of Rostov (South-West).

This industrial site supplies the Russian army, according to Kyiv. It is located less than 20 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, in a region which houses the headquarters of Russian troops for their offensive in Ukraine.

In November, the West authorized Ukraine to use long-range missiles, such as ATACMS and Storm Shadow, to target Russian territory.

Kyiv had been demanding this for a long time but its partners feared the reaction from Moscow, which presented this as a red line.

In response, Russia launched a new missile against Ukraine at the end of November, the Orechnik, which can carry a nuclear charge and strike thousands of kilometers away.

President Vladimir Putin also considered that the authorization given by the West to strike Russia gave the conflict a “global character”.

He had threatened to directly strike these countries, as well as “decision-making centers” in Kyiv.

Russia claims capture of two new villages in eastern Ukraine

Russia claimed Thursday the capture of two villages in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, where it has been making progress in recent months against embattled Ukrainian troops, Russian state agencies reported.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its troops had “liberated” Zelenivka, a small town west of the industrial town of Kurakhové, which appears close to falling.

Russian soldiers had already captured villages to the north, east and south of Kurakhové, almost encircling it.

The Russians have accelerated their advance in the Donetsk region, a target for months. It is part of Donbass, a historic Ukrainian mining basin that Russian President Vladimir Putin sees as “a priority”.

The Russian ministry also claimed the capture of the village of Noviï Komar, according to the Ria Novosti agency.

This locality had only a few hundred inhabitants before the conflict, but it is located about twenty kilometers from the borders of the Zaporizhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Ukraine suspects Russia of preparing an offensive in the southern region of Zaporizhia. Moscow’s troops already occupy part of it but the southern front has remained relatively stable since the start of the year, compared to the eastern front.

A large-scale Russian attack would pose a challenge to the Ukrainian army, whose forces are already strained in the eastern regions.

Russian troops seized more Ukrainian territory in November than in any other month since March 2022, according to an AFP analysis based on data from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), based in the United States.