MOSCOW: Russia promised Ukraine “retaliation” on Saturday after the latter carried out, according to Moscow, the firing of American ATACMS missiles the day before, an attack presented by the Kremlin as a red line in the conflict .
“These actions of the kyiv regime, supported by its Western guardians, will be subject to reprisals,” the Russian army warned in a statement.
In recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to order his army to strike the city center of kyiv in response to Ukrainian attacks carried out with American ATACMS or British Storm Shadows, without however carrying out his threats to this end. stadium.
Earlier on Saturday, the Russian army declared having intercepted, during this attack, “eight ATACMS missiles” which targeted the Russian region of Belgorod, on the border with Ukraine, as well as “72 drones”.
However, Moscow’s forces did not specify whether this Ukrainian attack had caused casualties or material damage.
In November, the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden authorized kyiv to use such missiles, after having long opposed it. The decision followed the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops, which the West and Ukraine believe came in support of Russian soldiers.
Since then, kyiv has carried out several rounds of attacks using these long-range ATACMS missiles, as well as British Storm Shadow missiles.
-Russia responded by firing for the first time an experimental hypersonic weapon called “Orechnik”, systematically promising “a response” to each Ukrainian attack of this type against its territory.
American President-elect Donald Trump, who is scheduled to take office on January 20, declared in mid-December that he was “strongly opposed” to the use by the Ukrainian army of American ATACMS missiles, citing an “intensification” and a ” worsening” of the conflict.
Near the border with Ukraine, two people were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on the town of Chebekino, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region.
On the front, a Ukrainian strike left at least ten injured in the town of Gorlivka, in eastern Ukraine, occupied by Moscow, according to its mayor, Ivan Prikhodko.
Further north, the Russian army claimed on Saturday the capture of the small town of Nadiïa in the Ukrainian region of Lugansk, which it annexed in 2022 and which it controls almost entirely.
Finally, four people were injured in a Russian drone attack in the south of the country, according to Roman Mrochko, the head of the municipal military administration of the large city of Kherson.
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