War in Ukraine: Vladimir Putin threatens the United States with a “direct confrontation”

Ukraine war escalating? Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia is set to begin producing previously banned short- and medium-range missiles, after warning the United States of the risk of “direct confrontation” over US drone missions in the Black Sea. Moscow also blamed the United States this week for a strike on Sunday in Crimea – a Ukrainian peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014 – which it said Ukraine carried out using US ATACMS tactical missiles with a range of 300 km, which killed four people and wounded more than 150. Russia has vowed to retaliate against what it sees as Washington’s growing involvement.

Read also :
DIRECT. War in Ukraine: Russia wants to produce previously banned missiles

The Russian president, in a televised meeting with senior officials, said Friday that his country should “start producing” missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. These were previously banned under a now-defunct Cold War treaty with the United States. Putin said 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.

Read also :
War in Ukraine: why the French Caesar cannon is an export hit

Attacks on Russian soil

Russia considers that the assistance provided to kyiv in terms of weapons, intelligence collection and identification of targets on Russian territory made the United States and its allies parties to the conflict, which the Kremlin revived in February 2022 with a large-scale offensive in Ukraine.

The flights of American drones in the Black Sea “increase the probability of incidents in the airspace with the aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which increases the risk of a direct confrontation between the (Atlantic) Alliance and the Russian Federation,” the Russian Defense Ministry warned. According to the Russian authorities, these American aircraft are used for “reconnaissance and target designation for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian armed forces” by the West. The Kremlin assures that the 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.

Read also :
INTERVIEW. War in Ukraine: “It’s Verdun with drones…” How machines terrorize soldiers on the front

Daily bombings in Ukraine

Russian bombings 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 second city of this country, announced the governor Oleg Synegoubov. Another attack left one dead and six injured, including a seven-month-old baby, in Dnipro (central-east), according to the regional governor Serguii 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 Bakhmut.

But according to kyiv, the Ukrainian forces are in a better position thanks to the arrival of Western weapons, after months of blockage. “The ammunition consumption ratio was one to seven (in favor of the Russian army), today it is one to three,” said a source within the general staff of the Ukrainian army.

Read also :
War in Ukraine: “99% of soldiers hate him”… Volodymyr Zelensky fires army chief for incompetence

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, put forward his own solution: that Ukraine cede five eastern and southern regions and renounce joining NATO. De facto a request for capitulation, rejected in kyiv as among 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”.