Russian
President Vladimir Putin makes a televised address in Moscow, Russia
November 21, 2024, in this still image taken from video.
Kremlin.ru/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
Putin says Ukraine war is going global
MOSCOW,
Nov 21 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that the
Ukraine war was escalating towards a global conflict after the United
States and Britain allowed Ukraine to hit Russia with their weapons, and
warned the West that Moscow could strike back.
Russia,
Putin said, had responded to the use of U.S. and British missiles by
firing a new kind of hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile at a
Ukrainian military facility. More could follow, Putin warned. He said
civilians would be warned ahead of further strikes with such weapons.
After
approval from the administration of President Joe Biden, Ukraine struck
Russia with six U.S.-made ATACMS on Nov. 19 and with British Storm
Shadow missiles and U.S.-made HIMARS on Nov. 21, Putin said.
"From
that moment, as we have repeatedly underscored, a regional conflict in
Ukraine previously provoked by the West has acquired elements of a
global character," Putin said in an address to the nation carried by
state television after 8 pm Moscow time (1700 GMT).
The United States, Putin said, was pushing the world towards a global conflict.
"And in case of escalation of aggressive actions, we will also respond decisively and in a mirror manner," he said.
Putin
said the Ukrainian missile attack with ATACMS had failed to inflict any
serious damage. But the Storm Shadow attack on Kursk region on Nov. 21
had been directed at a command point and led to deaths and injuries,
Putin said.
"The
use by the enemy of such weapons is not able to change the course of
the military actions in the zone of the special military operation,"
Putin said.
"We
consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military
facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used
against our facilities," Putin said. "If anyone else doubts this, then
they are wrong - there will always be a response."
Russia
controls 18% of Ukraine including all of Crimea, which it annexed from
Ukraine in 2014, 80% of the Donbas - the Donetsk and Luhansk regions -
and more than 70% of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, as well just
under 3% of the Kharkiv region and a sliver of Mykolaiv region.
Ukraine
and the West say the 2022 invasion was an imperial-style attempt to
grab sovereign Ukrainian territory and that they fear Russia could try
to attack a NATO member one day if Putin wins in Ukraine.
Putin
said Moscow had tested a new medium-range hypersonic non-nuclear
ballistic known as "Oreshnik" (the hazel) by firing it at a missile and
defence enterprise in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, where missile and
space rocket company Pivdenmash, known as Yuzhmash by Russians, is
based.
He said the attack on the enterprise was successful.
Russia,
he added, was developing short and medium range missiles in response to
the planned production and then deployment by the United States of
medium and shorter range missiles in Europe and the far east.
"I
believe that the United States made a mistake by unilaterally
destroying the treaty on the elimination of intermediate-range and
shorter-range missiles in 2019 under a far-fetched pretext," Putin said,
referring to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
The
United States formally withdrew from the landmark 1987 (INF) Treaty
with Russia in 2019 after saying that Moscow was violating the accord,
an accusation the Kremlin denied.
Putin
imposed a unilateral moratorium on the development of missiles
previously banned by the INF treaty. He said Russia's future actions
would depend on the West's actions - and threats against Russia.
"Let
me remind you that Russia has voluntarily, unilaterally committed
itself not to deploy medium-range and shorter-range missiles until such
time as American weapons of this kind appear in any region of the
world."
Reporting by Marina Bobrova and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow; and Maxim Rodionov in London; editing by Andrew Heavens