MOSCOW, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Vladimir Putin’s hypersonic
missile carried a simple message to the West over Ukraine: back off, and if you
don’t, Russia reserves the right to hit U.S. and British military facilities.
Russia fired a new intermediate-range hypersonic
ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik”, or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine on Thursday in
what Putin said was a direct response to strikes on Russia by Ukrainian forces
with U.S. and British missiles.
In a special statement from the Kremlin just after 8
p.m. in Moscow that day, the Russian president said the war was escalating
towards a global conflict, though he avoided any nuclear rhetoric.
Putin has also refrained, so far, from actually
striking the West, a step that could lead to a direct confrontation between
Russia and the NATO alliance – and a confrontation that U.S. President Joe
Biden said in March 2022 would be World War III.
In his statement, the Kremlin chief gave the West
notice that Russia reserved the right to strike at the military installations
of countries that let Ukraine use their missiles to hit Russia – so far only
the United States and Britain.
“Putin is saying to the West stop – halt – back off,”
Sergei Markov, a former Kremlin adviser, told Reuters.
“The signal Putin is sending to the world is that we
consider these strikes as the direct entry of the United States and Britain
into a war against Russia,” he said. “But we are not responding with all our
might right now because these strikes against Russia will not change the
outcome of the war.”
A Russian source who spoke on condition of anonymity
due to the sensitivity of the situation said Putin had hinted that he wanted to
steer clear of escalation, though the odds of Russia using nuclear weapons
remained pretty high.
The source did not clarify whether he was talking
about tactical battlefield weapons or long-range nuclear missiles.
Nuclear Threshold
President Biden dropped his opposition to Ukraine firing U.S. missiles at
targets deep inside Russia in response to North Korea’s entry to the war, a
shift in U.S. policy that took on added urgency following Donald Trump’s Nov. 5
election win, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
The decision could help to “Trump-proof” parts of
Biden’s Ukraine agenda by strengthening Kyiv’s position in case it loses U.S.
support, one of the sources said.
Russian officials cast the move by Biden as a reckless
decision by a lame-duck outgoing administration aimed at creating a serious
crisis for Trump to resolve when he is inaugurated as president in January.
That puts Putin in a difficult position: if he
escalates now, he could stoke just such a crisis. But if he doesn’t, then the
West could interpret him as weak and keep pushing through clear Russian red
lines
When Putin warned in September that Russia would
update its nuclear doctrine to allow potentially a nuclear response to the use
of conventional Western missiles to strike Russia, U.S. Secretary of State
Anthony Blinken said it was not the first time he had “rattled the nuclear
sabre.”
The day Ukraine fired U.S.-made ATACMS missiles deep
into Russian territory, Putin approved the lowering of the nuclear threshold
flagged two months earlier.
After Putin lowered the threshold, the Pentagon said
that the United States had not changed its nuclear posture – or observed a
change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
The Pentagon and Britain’s Ministry of Defence did not
immediately respond to questions about whether they had changed any security
postures in response to Putin’s threat to attack their military installations.
When asked what the main message of Putin’s statement
was, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that the key thing was that
Russia will react to “reckless actions” from Western countries which take part
in strikes on Russia.
“The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its
capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in case our
concerns are not taken into account are clearly outlined,” he said.
Besides warning that U.S. and British military
facilities could be targeted, Putin said Washington’s plans to deploy short-
and intermediate-range missiles in Europe and Asia could prompt Moscow to do
the same – bringing its firepower within closer striking range of the West.
“Putin is clearly signalling increased reliance on
strategic weapons – including nuclear and longer-range missiles – to push the
U.S. and NATO to stop its support for Ukraine,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a former
special assistant to President Barack Obama and now director of global risk at
the Federation of American Scientists.
“I don’t think he has any intention to go nuclear in a
war he is winning, but he appears to want us to worry a lot, perhaps to make it
easier for Trump to cut and run,” he said.
‘Die Hard’
Markov said Putin’s statement was also directed at his audience in Russia,
where Markov said there were “a lot of voices calling for Putin to strike the
West directly – and strike it hard.”
Pro-Putin Russian Telegram channels cast the
72-year-old as a “Krepkiy Oreshnik”, a word play on the name of the missile and
the 1988 film “Die Hard” starring Bruce Willis which translates into Russian as
“Krepkiy Oreshek” – or a tough nut.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov praised Putin for a
statement he said thousands of soldiers had been waiting a long time for.
“They are sitting there in the West and it is warm and
quite calm. So let them feel on their own skin what a real war is,” Kadyrov
said. “Did they want a real war with Russia? So let them have their fill of
it!”
“It is necessary to demonstrate the full murderous
power of Russian long-range weapons,” Kadyrov said.
Putin said Ukraine’s attack with ATACMS on Nov. 19 had
failed to inflict any serious damage. But the attack a day later with British
Storm Shadow missiles on the Kursk region targeted a command point and led to
deaths and injuries, he said.
Firing what the United States believes is a new
ballistic missile in response is a clear warning to the West, but a carefully
calibrated one, analysts said.
Kremlin spokesman Peskov said Russia was not
technically obliged to warn Washington about the strike, because the missile
was intermediate-range rather than intercontinental, but he said Moscow had
informed the U.S. 30 minutes beforehand anyway.
And while Putin pointedly avoided mention of nuclear
weapons in his statement, the new hypersonic missile Russia fired at Dnipro in
Ukraine can be equipped with nuclear warheads, and can reach Europe or the west
coast of the United States.
Ultimately, Putin warned the West not to underestimate
his resolve.
“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,” he said.
“If anyone else doubts this, then they are wrong –
there will always be a response.”
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