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, report agencies.
Russia, Putin said, had responded to the use of US 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 US-made ATACMS on Nov 19 and with British Storm Shadow missiles and US-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."
Moscow's ambassador in London said Thursday Britain was "now directly involved" in Russia's war with Ukraine, following reports Kyiv had fired UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles onto Russian territory for the first time.
"Absolutely, Britain... is now directly involved in this war," Andrei Kelin told Sky News, adding "this firing cannot happen" without UK and NATO support.
In the interview, Kelin was asked if Russia's use of Chinese technology, Iranian drones and missiles, and the alleged deployment of North Korean soldiers meant that those countries were also directly involved in the war.
"On that subject, I can say easily that we have plenty of mercenaries from different countries that are fighting right now on the side of Ukraine," the Russian envoy replied.
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.
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