Vladimir Putin stated this Sunday that the Russian Armed Forces will attack new targets if the West supplies Ukraine with long-range missiles.
“If they do supply them, we will draw the appropriate conclusions and use our weapons, which we do not lack, to attack those targets that we have not hit so far,” the Russian president said in an interview on public television.
This is how Putin expressed himself a few hours after Kyiv woke up shaken by new explosions. The Ukrainian authorities have denounced that a Russian missile has passed dangerously close to the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant, in the south of the country, in an incident that they have directly described as an “act of nuclear terrorism”.
The state nuclear energy operator, Energoatom, has specified that the incident occurred around 05:30 this morning when a Russian cruise missile, “similar to the Kalibr model”, flew over the plant at a “critical” proximity for a few moments. before continuing your journey. “The rocket was probably headed in the direction of kyiv, where explosions were heard this morning,” Energoatom estimated.
The Pentagon has confirmed sending high-precision, medium-range rockets to Ukraine to give Kyiv a decisive advantage in the war against Vladimir Putin’s invading army. This was announced by Joe Biden, and his official spokespersons detailed it, after the government of Volodímir Zelenski had demanded more powerful weapons to stop the Russian advance in the East of the country. The Kremlin accused Washington of adding “fuel to the fire” of the conflict by fueling “a direct provocation by Ukraine aimed at involving the West in military action.”
In an open letter published in The New York Times, the US president announced on Tuesday his decision to send the armed forces of the invaded country “more advanced rocket systems and ammunition that will allow them to attack key targets with greater precision on the battlefield. in Ukraine”.
The last part of the sentence is important. The projectiles that the US will send to the Eastern country should not be used to attack Russia but to defend the Ukrainian territory itself.
As a senior official of the US Administration specified, the new package of 700 million dollars in weapons for Ukraine includes “high mobility artillery rockets, High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (Himars)”, which will allow the local army to mount attacks “more accurate and from a greater distance” than the previous generation within its range.
The Nasams anti-aircraft battery with which Spain will reinforce its deployment in Latvia will be deployed in the Baltic country in just fifteen days.
This was confirmed by the Chief of the Defense Staff, Admiral General Teodoro López Calderón. The shipment of this battery is part of NATO measures to reinforce deterrence, after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. The system is now ready for deployment, Jemad explained, although the space where it will operate at a Latvian air base has not yet been prepared.
A reconnaissance team from the Army inspected the facilities a few days ago and is back in Spain, the admiral commented. Another team will travel next week as an ‘advance’ for pre-deployment preparations. “When they give the final go-ahead we will deploy the battery,” he concluded.
The system, designed by the Kongsberg and Raytheon companies, entered service with the Spanish Army in 2003 within the framework of industrial compensation for the purchase of five Fridjof Nansen-class frigates for the Norwegian Navy. The firing platform is made up of six container tubes from which American-made AIM 120 Amraam missiles are launched. The system also incorporates a Sentinel radar for the detection and tracking of targets with a range of 75 kilometers.
