Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Western intervention in Ukraine will be met with a “lightning” military response.
Putin’s bellicose threat came as Russia on Wednesday claimed a missile strike in southern Ukraine that destroyed “a large number” of Western-supplied weapons.
The Russian leader said that countries assisting Ukraine “want to intervene in the ongoing events from the side and create an unacceptable strategic threat to Russia, and they must know that our response to counterattacks will be lightning-quick.”
“We have all the tools that no one else can boast,” Putin told lawmakers in St. Petersburg, alluding to Moscow’s ballistic missile and nuclear arsenals.
“We’re not going to brag about it, we’ll use them if we need to, and I want everyone to know that. We’ve made all the decisions about it.”
The Russian leader did not specify, but he recently oversaw the successful test of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, which is expected to soon be fielded by Russia, each capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads.
Which areas of Ukraine do the parties control?
The United States says Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed “in principle” to the United Nations’ involvement in the evacuation of citizens of the Azov steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine. UN Secretary-General António Guterres calls for ceasefire ‘as soon as possible’ (Al Jazeera)
‘They thought it was dangerous’
Putin promised to complete what he called a “special military operation” to seize territory from Ukraine, which Moscow considers historically Russian. He accused NATO countries and their allies of fanning the flames of the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
“The countries that have historically tried to contain Russia do not need a self-sufficient power like ours. They think its existence is dangerous for them. But this is far from the truth. They are the ones who threaten the whole world,” Putin said.
Putin said that by launching an offensive in Ukraine, Russian troops removed “the real danger of a major conflict on our territory according to someone else’s playbook”.
He claimed that NATO plans to use Ukraine as a route to invade Russia through the Crimean peninsula and the separatist-held eastern border area of the Donbass. Crimea was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
“All the tasks of our special military operation in Donbass and Ukraine on February 24 will be completed unconditionally,” Putin said, adding that Western attempts to “strangle Russia economically” through sanctions had failed.
“Small Gain”
On Wednesday’s battlefield, fighting continued on a front line some 480 kilometers (300 miles) long in eastern Ukraine. Russia said its missiles hit a shipment of weapons delivered to Ukraine by the United States and European countries.
Discussing the intelligence findings on condition of anonymity, Western officials said Russia had made slow progress in the eastern Donbas region and made “minor gains”, including occupying south of Igyum and Rubizhny. Suburban villages and towns.
The offensive continued to be marred by poor command, loss of troops and equipment, bad weather and strong Ukrainian resistance, officials said.
Some Russian troops have moved from the devastated southern port city of Mariupol to other parts of Donbass. But some remained in Mariupol, battling Ukrainian troops hiding at the Azov Steel Plant, the city’s last stronghold. About 1,000 civilians and about 2,000 Ukrainian defenders are said to have taken refuge there.
Across the border in Russia, the governor of Belgorod region said an ammunition depot in the region burned down on Wednesday after several explosions were heard.
An explosion was also reported in Russia’s Kursk region, near the Ukrainian border, and authorities in Russia’s Voronezh region said air defenses shot down a drone.
‘Weaponisation of energy supply’
Polish and Bulgarian leaders accused Moscow of using natural gas to blackmail their countries after Russia’s state-owned energy company halted supplies on Wednesday. EU leaders responded to the comments and called an emergency meeting on Russia’s move.
Simone Tagliapitra, a senior fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, said Russia’s goal of cutting off gas flows was to “divide and conquer” — pitting European countries against each other as they hunted around for energy.
Gas outages and the Kremlin’s warning that other countries could be next have worried the EU’s 27 nations.
Germany is the continent’s largest economy and Italy is one of Europe’s biggest consumers of Russian gas, although they have taken steps to reduce their reliance on Moscow.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “It is not surprising that the Kremlin is using fossil fuels to try to blackmail us.”
“Today, the Kremlin’s attempt to sow division among member states has failed again. The era of Russian fossil fuels in Europe is coming to an end.”
Germany suspends approval of Nord Stream 2 pipeline in response to Russian invasion of Ukraine
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told the Polish parliament that he believes Poland’s support for Ukraine and sanctions against Russia are the real reasons for the gas disruption. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kirill Petkov called the interruption of gas blackmail, adding: “We will not surrender to such an act.”
Fatih Birol, executive director of the Paris-based International Energy Agency, said the disruption to natural gas was “weaponizing the energy supply”.
Europe is not without influence in the dispute, as it pays Russia $400 million a day for gas, which Putin would lose if cut off entirely.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia’s request to switch to paying for gas in rubles instead of euros or dollars was due to the West’s move to freeze Russia’s hard currency assets.
He said the assets were actually “stolen” by the West in an “unprecedented act of unkindness”.
