Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his country’s nuclear armament on Wednesday March 13, deeming it “more advanced” than that of the United States and assuring that its arsenal was always “ready” for a nuclear war. The West has regularly accused the Russian president of using veiled threats on this subject, particularly regarding the use of these weapons in Ukraine.
“Triads (the vectors for launching atomic weapons, editor’s note), only the Americans and we really have them. And there, we are much more advanced. The whole nuclear component is more modern here,” he said. said in a long interview on Russian television, as the start, Friday, of the presidential election approaches, which in the absence of any opposition should see his re-election triumphant.
Vladimir Putin added that his country was “ready” for a nuclear conflict, but that he had never thought of using such weapons in Ukraine. “Why should we use means of mass destruction? There has never been such a necessity,” he assured, stressing that Russian military doctrine provides for the use of the ultimate weapon if the existence of Russia is threatened or in the event of “an attack on our sovereignty and independence”. The Russian president also reacted for the first time to the comments of his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, who said on February 26 “not to exclude” the sending of Western troops to Ukraine.
Ukrainian attacks continue
“If these are official military contingents from foreign countries, I am sure that this will not change the situation on the battlefield. This is the most important thing, just like sending weapons does not change anything” , replied the master of the Kremlin. He also accused Ukraine of stepping up its attacks on Russian territory to disrupt the presidential vote, scheduled for March 15-17. kyiv, for its part, emphasizes that it will continue its attacks in Russia as long as the Russian army occupy its territory and bomb its cities.
“The main objective, I have no doubt, if they cannot undermine the presidential elections in Russia, is at least to try to prevent citizens in some way from expressing their will” , pointed out the Russian president. These attacks, he said, can be explained in a “very simple” way, with the “failures on the front line” of the Ukrainians. If Russia has been in a position of strength since the failure of the Ukrainian counter-offensive in the summer of 2023, it has not managed to defeat Ukraine two years after sending its troops there. Russian territory is regularly targeted by drones, artillery fire and, more rarely, ground attacks.
Enemy incursions
On Tuesday, pro-Ukraine Russian fighters said they crossed the Russian border in an armed incursion that left at least one dead and which Moscow said it repelled. But the attackers claimed the capture of the border village of Tiotkino, in the Kursk region. On Wednesday, one of his groups, “Legion of Freedom of Russia”, released a video in which two fighters claim to be fighting in the locality. AFP is unable to confirm or deny this information.
In addition, a new attack by dozens of Ukrainian drones took place during the night and morning of Wednesday. One of these devices caused a fire at a refinery in Ryazan, about 200 km southeast of Moscow. The strike caused “some injuries,” the governor of the Ryazan region, Pavel Malkov, wrote on Telegram. Another drone was shot down on Wednesday approaching an oil refinery in the Leningrad region, near Saint Petersburg (northwest), regional governor Alexander Drozdenko said on Telegram, specifying that the attack “did not cause any casualties or damage.”
In total, 58 drones targeted several Russian regions during the night and morning, notably those of Belgorod, Briansk, Kursk and Voronezh, bordering Ukraine, according to a press release from the Russian Ministry of Defense, ensuring that they all been destroyed. On Tuesday, Ukrainian drones notably hit the town hall of Belgorod, a town close to Ukraine and regularly targeted, as well as an oil refinery in the Nizhni-Novgorod region, 800 km from the Ukrainian border, and an oil depot. fuel in Orel.
A Ukrainian source told AFP that the attacks were operations by the special services, the SBU. Since last summer, the Ukrainian army has increased drone attacks against Russia, striking further and further into Russian territory to respond to Moscow’s attacks on its own territory.