Vladimir Putin’s shock nuclear move after missile threat
The chances of Putin using nuclear weapons against Ukraine has just increased after a shock move that marks a dramatic escalation in tensions.
Russia confirmed that it had been hit with long-range missles overnight just one day after Washington gave the go-ahead for American ATACMS to be used.
Ukraine used controversial missiles in a strike on Russia’s Bryansk region on Tuesday morning local time, the Russian ministry of defence in Moscow said.
The missiles were targetting an ammunition arsenal and one of the damaged rockets landed on the “technical territory” of the military facility, sparking a fire.
Russia said they had shot down five missiles and damaged one more.
The attack comes after Vladimir Putin signed a decree broadening the scope for when Moscow will consider using nuclear weapons in the clear warning to the West and Ukraine.
The Kremlin says the move, which enables Russia to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state if they are supported by nuclear powers, was “necessary to bring our principles in line with the current situation.”
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov said: “The Russian Federation reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression with the use of conventional weapons against it.”
Putin’s nuclear move came after the Biden administration gave Kyiv permission to use ATACMS.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov accused Washington of trying to escalate the conflict.
“That Atacms was used repeatedly overnight against Bryansk Region is of course a signal that they [the US] want escalation,” he said.
“And without the Americans, use of these high-tech missiles, as Putin has said many times, is impossible.”
He said Russia would “proceed from the understanding” that the missiles were operated by “American military experts”.
“We will be taking this as a renewed face of the western war against Russia and we will react accordingly,” he added.
Robert Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump’s newly appointed health secretary, accused Joe Biden’s administration of wanting to start World War III after the decision to give Ukraine the green light to use long-range missiles ATACMS rockets.
“The anonymous men in lanyards who are currently running US foreign policy apparently want to start World War III before they leave the White House,” he posted.
The Biden administration’s left-field call is a big short-term win for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, but analysts say the gesture is another unwanted spark near the powder keg of political tension across the globe.
The Kremlin has condemned the decision and described it as an “escalation of tensions”, while Donald Trump Jr accused the White House of concocting a nightmare scenario to spite his father before he is inaugurated.
“The Military Industrial Complex seems to want to make sure they get World War 3 going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.”
Meanwhile, an anonymous US official this week claimed the decision to allow Ukraine target Russia was in response to North Korea deploying troops to assist Russia’s “special military campaign”.
President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to end the war in Ukraine and rallied millions behind his promise for peace. His campaign repeatedly attacked the Biden administration for spending untold millions in American tax dollars on foreign military aid, asserting that the 78-year-old will be able to successfully broker a deal with Vladimir Putin to stop the bloodshed.
Biden dodged questions about the potentially disastrous deal in a bizarre media appearance in the Amazon this week, which sparked another tidal wave of backlash from Republicans.
“Biden, who just authorised Ukraine to use US-supplied long-range missiles, takes no questions and retreats back into the Amazon rainforest,” the Republican National Committee’s RNC Research account posted on X.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had seen media reports that Biden cleared strikes and warned that such a decision would have repercussions.
“It’s obvious that the outgoing administration in Washington intends to take steps in order to continue fuelling the fire and provoking further escalation of tensions,” he said.
“If such a decision was really formulated and announced to the Kyiv regime, then of course it’s a qualitatively new spiral of tensions and a qualitatively new situation from the point of view of the US’s engagement in the conflict,” Peskov told journalists.
He said President Putin had expressed Russia’s position clearly in September when the leader said that such a move would put NATO “at war” with Russia.
In such a case, “we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face,” Putin said in September.
Peskov said on Monday that Putin’s position is that such strikes would ultimately be carried out not by Ukraine but by the countries that give permission for such use of missiles.
The Kremlin spokesman said this was because “the targets are set not by Ukrainian military but by specialists from these Western countries. That fundamentally changes the modality of their engagement.”
“That’s the danger and provocative nature of this situation,” he added.
Ukraine refuses to surrender
Ukraine said Tuesday that its forces would never surrender to Russia, 1,000 days after Moscow launched its brutal invasion, while the Kremlin also pledged victory and escalated its nuclear sabre-rattling.
The grim anniversary opened with an overnight Russian strike in the eastern Ukrainian region of Sumy that gutted a Soviet-era resident building and killed at least nine people, including a child.
President Volodymyr Zelensky published images of rescue workers hauling bodies from the debris and called on Kyiv’s allies to “force” the Kremlin into peace.
The foreign ministry echoed Zelensky’s comments in a statement marking the anniversary by calling on allies to ramp up their military support to bring about a “sustainable” end to the war.
“Ukraine will never submit to the occupiers, and the Russian military will be punished for violating international law,” the ministry said.
“We need peace through strength, not appeasement,” the ministry added, referring to growing calls for Ukraine to sit down at the negotiating table with Russia to end the war.
A Russian attack in Sumy hit a dormitory in the town of Glukhiv, which had a pre-war population around 30,000 people and lies just 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Kursk region in Russia, where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory after launching a major ground offensive in August.
The drone attack killed nine people including a child, the emergency services said, adding that four people were likely under the rubble.
In total, Kyiv said that Russia had launched 87 drones over Ukraine during the night, and that 51 were shot down.
The strike on Sumy comes just days after another Russian aerial bombardment in the border region killed 12 people and wounded 84.
‘Chronic’ Russian violations
A separate missile strike on Monday on the UNESCO-protected city of Odesa in southern Ukraine left 10 dead and 55 wounded.
Ukrainian forces have steadily been losing ground in the Kursk region and have warned that Russia has amassed a force of some 50,000 troops, including North Korean forces, to wrest back the region.
The anniversary of Russia’s invasion -- launched on February 24, 2022 -- comes at a perilous time for Ukrainian forces across the front, particularly near the war-battered cities of Kupiansk and Pokrovsk.
Ukraine has accused Russian forces of deploying banned chemical substances to advance and on Tuesday urged its allies respond to a report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) watchdog that said it had found banned riot control gas in Ukrainian soil samples from the front line.
“Russia’s use of banned chemicals on the battlefield once again demonstrates Russia’s chronic disregard for international law,” the foreign ministry said.
Originally published as Vladimir Putin’s shock nuclear move after missile threat
Grave escalation the world feared
A new video appears to show long-range ATACMS missiles fired by Ukraine into Russia for the first time.
‘Get WWIII going’: Huge Russia escalation
Months ago, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin identified a glaring “red line” for the West. Joe Biden has decided to cross it.