This Thursday, November 21, Vladimir Putin delivered a surprise speech to the nation lasting less than 10 minutes. On this occasion, the Russian president confirmed that his forces had 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’,” declared Vladimir Putin during this address broadcast on television. According to him, this strike targeted “a site of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex” in the city of Dnipro, “which produces (…) missile equipment and other weapons”. This city in central Ukraine is home to the Pivdenmash group, called in Russian Yuzhmash and dating from the Soviet era.
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According to Vladimir Putin, this hypersonic missile is invincible. “Today there is no way to counter such weapons. The missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second. The air defense systems currently available in the world and the anti-missile defense systems created by the Americans in Europe do not intercept these missiles. This is excluded,” he insisted. According to the Russian president, Thursday's launch was a success.
The conflict took on a “global” character
Vladimir Putin also considered that the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global character”, blaming the West for authorizing the use of American and European missiles on Russian soil.
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“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.
Putin does not rule out striking countries whose weapons are used by kyiv in Russia
“We have always been ready, and we still are, to resolve all problems by peaceful means, but we are also ready to deal with any developments,” he said in the speech broadcast on Russian television . “If anyone still doubts it, it's useless. There will always be an answer,” he warned.
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Another threat made this Thursday, the Russian president indicated that Moscow did not rule out striking countries whose weapons are used by Ukraine against Russian territory. “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 declared during this televised speech.
