Today, President Putin is fully immersed in the ongoing war of words between Russia and NATO over Ukraine.
Putin stressed that the Russian authorities would have to act if NATO crossed what Russians consider their “red lines”.
Russia will respond to the threat
– If offensive weapons appear in Ukraine, the flight time to Moscow will be 7-10 minutes. At today’s conference, President Putin said that it will be five minutes to deploy a hypersonic weapon. It was shown on Russian state television.
He stressed that Russia would have to respond in a similar way if NATO came up with such a threat.
According to Putin, the Russian army has just tested a new hypersonic missile with a speed of nine times the speed of sound.
It also spends only five minutes on the distance from Moscow to Ukraine.
This missile will be deployed in military units early next year.
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NATO warns
NATO Foreign Ministers meet in Riga, Latvia today and tomorrow. The most important topic on the agenda is the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities claim that Russia has deployed nearly 100,000 soldiers in the border region with Ukraine.
Ukrainians fear that the Russians will attack and possibly take over the two regions in the east where Russian-backed rebels now rule.
The Russian authorities reject this and say that they can deploy their military forces anywhere they want on their territory.
NATO believes that the intentions of the Russians are unclear.
– See armored vehicles, drones and electronic warfare systems. General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg says there are also thousands of Russian soldiers ready to fight.
The US authorities assert that Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine will have dire consequences for Russia.
Hardly a full war
Harsh words and phrases were used by both sides in this conflict.
But President Putin says he hopes common sense will prevail.
From NATO, it is said that Western countries will not respond with force of arms. Even if Russia launched a military attack on Ukraine.
The most relevant would be the use of political and economic measures.
Ukraine is a partner with NATO, not a member state.
But Ukraine received more and more weapons and military support from Western countries.
In addition, NATO planes and ships patrol almost all the time near what Russia considers its border in the Black Sea.
All this provokes the Russian authorities.
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