Putin vows to use ‘all means of destruction available to Russia’

Putin has vowed to use all means of destruction available to Russia if the West supplies nuclear weapons to Kyiv in his strongest threat against nuking Ukraine yet. The Russian President asked on Thursday: ‘If the country which we are essentially at war with now becomes a nuclear power, what do we do?’

It comes after the New York Times reported last week that a number of unidentified Western officials had suggested outgoing US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons before he leaves office. ‘In this case, we will use all, I want to emphasise this, precisely all means of destruction available to Russia,’ Putin continued during the press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan. ‘Everything: we will not allow it. We’ll be watching their every move.

‘If officially someone were to transfer something, then that would mean a violation of all the non-proliferation commitments they have made,’ Putin concluded. Putin also said it was practically impossible for Ukraine to produce a nuclear weapon, but that it might be able to make some kind of ‘dirty bomb’, a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material in order to spread contamination. In that case, Russia would respond appropriately, he said.

Russia has repeatedly said, without providing evidence, that Ukraine might use such a device. It comes as Putin made a direct threat to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as he warned Moscow could soon begin to strike ‘decision-making centres’ in Kyiv if Ukraine continues to hit targets in Russia with US and UK missiles. The Kremlin chief’s stark warning follows hours after Russian forces pounded Ukraine with dozens of missiles and drones overnight in an attempt to degrade the energy network as a bitter winter approaches.

Putin also announced that Russia’s production of advanced missile systems exceeds that of the NATO military alliance by 10 times, adding that Moscow plans to ramp up production yet further – adding fuel to the WW3 fire. Russian attacks have not yet struck government buildings in the Ukrainian capital which is heavily protected by air defences. But Putin claims Russia’s new ‘Oreshnik’ hypersonic missile, which it fired for the first time at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last week in response to the first ATACMS and Storm Shadow strikes in Russia, is incapable of being intercepted.

The debris from the medium-range ballistic missile that was fired at Dnipro on November 21 is now being studied by Ukrainian investigators as it historically became the first time such a powerful weapon has been used in the war. Ukraine said the weapon reached a top speed of more than 8,000mph as it headed towards Dnipro. Zelensky called the use of the weapon, which is capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, a severe escalation and urged his allies to respond.

‘Of course, we will respond to the ongoing strikes on Russian territory with long-range Western-made missiles, as has already been said, including by possibly continuing to test the Oreshnik in combat conditions, as was done on November 21,’ Putin told the meeting of a security alliance of ex-Soviet countries in Kazakhstan. ‘At present, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory. These could be military facilities, defence and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centres in Kyiv,’ he said. It follows the former Russian president and prime minister Dmitry Medvedev declaring NATO and the US are now at ‘full war’ with Russia after the West crossed ‘all red lines’ allowing Ukraine to strike targets across the border with Western missiles.

Medvedev, a close Putin ally who now serves as the Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said that every Ukrainian strike on Russian territory with Western weapons would be met with a response. ‘It’s not going to go unnoticed… It will change the rules of engagement – it’s proof that NATO and Washington and other participants in the alliance are not just participating in a hybrid war, but a war in every sense of the word against our country. ‘Negotiations are a long way off, events like this could push those negotiations back even further,’ he told Saudi Arabia’s Al-Arabiya.

‘Any strikes on Russia are unequivocally unacceptable. What happened was a crossing of all red lines.’ Russia is meanwhile continuing its work on the ‘unstoppable’ Satan II intercontinental ballistic missile – part of its terrifying strategic nuclear arsenal – on combat duty, Moscow’s state media revealed yesterday. The missile – also referred to as the RS-28 Sarmat, is designed to deliver nuclear warheads to strike targets thousands of miles away in the United States or Europe, but its development has been dogged by delays and testing setbacks.

Ukraine today faced an attack by Russia in which the war-torn country downed 79 missiles and 35 drones, leaving over a million Ukrainians without electricity in freezing cold temperatures. ‘This is a very despicable escalation of Russian terrorist tactics,’ Volodymyr Zelensky said. The Ukrainian President also alleged that Russia fired cluster munitions in the attack, though that claim is yet to be verified.

Cluster munitions can be dropped from planes or fired from artillery and missiles, exploding mid-air and scattering bomblets over a wide area. Experts say both Kyiv and Moscow have used them in the almost three-year war. ‘In several regions, strikes with cluster munitions were recorded, and they targeted civilian infrastructure,’ Zelensky said on social media. Cluster munitions have killed or wounded over 1,000 people in Ukraine since Russia launched its war in February 2022, the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) said in its annual report in September.

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