Russia vows response after Ukraine fires long-range US missiles
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Ukraine attack showed Western countries wanted to “escalate” the conflict.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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KYIV - Russia warned on Nov 19 that it would respond after Ukraine fired longer-range US missiles at its territory for the first time, as President Vladimir Putin issued a nuclear threat on the 1,000th day of the war.
A senior official told AFP that a strike on Russia’s Bryansk region earlier on Nov 19
Speaking 1,000 days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the attack showed Western countries wanted to “escalate” the conflict.
“We will be taking this as a qualitatively new phase of the Western war against Russia, and we will react accordingly,” he told a press conference at the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Brazil.
Mr Putin signed a decree on Nov 19 lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons, a move that the White House, Britain and European Union condemned as “irresponsible”.
He has used nuclear rhetoric throughout the conflict but has grown increasingly belligerent since 2023, pulling out of a nuclear test ban treaty and a key arms reduction agreement with the US.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky accused G-20 leaders in Brazil of failing to act over Mr Putin’s nuclear threats, saying the Russian leader had no interest in peace.
He later warned that Ukraine would lose the war if the United States cuts military funding to Kyiv.
US President-elect Donald Trump is a vocal sceptic of the billions that the Biden administration has given to Ukraine since the Russian invasion began in 2022.
“If they cut, we will, I think, we will lose,” Mr Zelensky said in an interview with US network Fox News.
“We will fight. We have our production, but it’s not enough to prevail,” he added.
Nuclear sabre-rattling
Washington this week said it had cleared Ukraine to use ATACMS against military targets inside Russia – a longstanding Ukrainian request.
The US will also soon provide Kyiv with anti-personnel land mines to shore up its defences against Russian forces, a US official said late on Nov 19.
The official said Washington has sought commitments from Ukraine to use the mines in its own territory, and only in areas that are not populated in order to decrease the risk they pose to civilians.
Russia said on Nov 19 that Ukraine had used the ATACMS missiles against a facility in the Bryansk region close to the border.
“At 3.25am, the enemy struck a site in the Bryansk region with six ballistic missiles. According to confirmed data, US-made ATACMS tactical missiles were used,” said a Defence Ministry statement.
Mr Lavrov said the 300km-range missiles could not have been fired without US technical assistance.
Moscow has said the use of Western weapons against its internationally recognised territory would make the US a direct participant in the conflict.
Confirmation of the strike came shortly after Mr Putin signed the decree that enables Moscow to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states such as Ukraine if they are supported by nuclear powers.
The new doctrine also allows Moscow to unleash a nuclear response in the event of a “massive” air attack, even if it is only with conventional weapons.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this was “necessary to bring our principles in line with the current situation”.
He also accused the West of trying to use Ukraine to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
‘Emboldened Russia’
The 1,000th day of Russia’s invasion – launched on Feb 24, 2022 – comes at a perilous time for Ukrainian forces across the front, particularly near the war-battered cities of Kupiansk and Pokrovsk.
Russia has also intensified strikes on Ukrainian cities in recent days, with attacks on city centres and residential buildings that have killed dozens of civilians.
A Russian strike in the eastern Ukrainian region of Sumy late on Nov 18 gutted a Soviet-era residential building and killed at least 12 people, including a child, according to officials.
Ukrainian forces have steadily lost ground in Russia’s Kursk region where they seized territory in August, and have warned that Russia has massed some 50,000 troops, including North Korean forces, to wrest back the region.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told Chinese President Xi Jinping on Nov 19 that the alleged deployment of North Korean soldiers
Both Russia and Ukraine have steered their economies to help the war effort.
Ukrainian lawmakers voted on Nov 19 to approve the 2025 budget with more than US$50 billion (S$67 billion) – or 60 per cent of all expenditure – allocated to defence and security.
Russia’s Parliament in October approved a budget that will see a defence spending surge of almost 30 per cent in 2025.
Nato chief Mark Rutte warned on Nov 19 that Mr Putin must not be allowed to prevail.
“Why is this so crucial that Putin will not get his way? Because you will have an emboldened Russia on our border... and I’m absolutely convinced it will not stop there,” Mr Rutte told reporters in Brussels.
At the UN, around 50 member states reaffirmed their support for Kyiv and demanded Moscow withdraw its troops from Ukraine on Nov 19, as they marked the anniversary of Russia’s invasion. AFP
