The Russian President, Vladimir Putinassured Thursday afternoon that Russia had tested in Ukraine a new medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile called Oreshnik. The missile, the latest generation according to the Kremlin, would have been included in the bombing of a military base near the city of Dnipropetrovsk, an operation that Putin described as “successful”. The attack represents Moscow’s response to the use on Russian soil of long-range ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, manufactured in the United States and Britain respectively, following President Biden’s authorization last Monday.
Putin insisted the authorization turned the war in Ukraine into a “global conflict” and once again threatened the West to use its weapons “however it sees fit.” In the morning, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova had already threatened Poland for installing anti-aircraft defenses which, according to the Kremlin, posed a risk to Russian national security. The Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterrescalled on all parties to work towards an immediate de-escalation of tensions.
In his public statement, the Russian president said that every NATO action would receive an appropriate response. That same week, Putin himself signed the decree by which the Russian nuclear doctrine was modified to be able to respond with unconventional weapons to any type of attack, provided that it comes from a country allied to a nuclear power . The panic that has arisen since then obviates the fact that Ukraine has already bombed Russian soil (Belgorod) with American weapons. In fact, it has occupied part of the Kursk region for three months thanks to Western military aid.
Nuclear threats, strong as they are, appear to have the same basis as when the United States and NATO were asked not to supply Ukraine with Patriot missiles or medium-range HIMARS batteries , neither F16 nor ATACMS. In fact, Putin has already warned of a possible holocaust if Ukraine attacks Crimea. It does not appear that the objective conditions have changed since then. Russia continues to advance and bleed at the same time. Ukraine remains on the defensive, with Western support hanging by a thread.
Demonstration of power
We must therefore understand that we are faced above all with a propaganda battle. By authorizing the use of ATACMS on Russian soil, the White House sent a strong message that Russia is serious about the possibility of a fair negotiation, something Putin continues to rule out. As the days passed, what seemed to be a unilateral decision by the Biden administration took shape in agreement with the president-elect. Donald Trump after their meeting last weekend. Otherwise, We understand that the Republican would have already made his disagreement public.
Trump may want to show Putin that he has the tools to bring him to the peace table. Ukraine already knows that it may run out of weapons at any moment, so the new president does not need to convince Zelensky of anything. If they really want it to be a negotiation table and not a capitulation table and, above all, if Trump wants to maintain something that resembles a negotiation table, status quo in the West, impervious to Russian imperialist ambitions, could be forced to show its harsher side.
For his part, Putin will do everything possible to convince the world that he is truly willing to end life on the planet, simply for the sake of ego. No sane person can consider Russia or its government to be existentially threatened. In fact, before beginning the invasion of Ukraine, US President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, spoke with the highest levels of the Kremlin to try to negotiate and allay fears over their safety. They received no response.
Reuters
Threat against civilians
The launch of this new missile, which the Ukrainians most of the time confused with an intercontinental ballistic missile, which would have constituted a very serious escalation of the conflict, aims to demonstrate that Russia is serious and that the six conventional warheads it brought with it They could perfectly well have been nuclear of more or less intensity. Actually, Putin hinted something similar with a cryptic “next time we use a hypersonic missile, we will warn civilians”.
Exactly what this expression means is open to debate, but in any case it is a threat: they attacked a military base with a missile that Putin considers impossible to shoot down (that remains to be seen) and they can do the same. with an entire city. In the same way, we can understand that the next time they use this weapon, civilians had better leave the target, because this time the warhead will be nuclear.
Russia continues to float the idea of a Third World War, directly and through its many propagandists. After almost three years and tens of thousands of deaths, he has still not managed to complete the conquest of Donbass begun in 2014, but he believes he can defeat the West with a simple feint. Kremlin spokesperson Dimitri Peskovclaimed to have warned the United States half an hour before the attack. He did not specify why, he simply reinforced the idea that we are not facing a war of aggression against Ukraine, no matter how much we have it in front of us, but rather an act defense against an alleged American threat.
Putin had previously considered using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine in the fall of 2022, after the disasters in Kharkiv and Kherson, but was dissuaded by the strength of Washington’s response. “A nuclear war cannot be won,” Biden warned at the time. This is the same doctrine that China follows. To fight for a new world order, we must first ensure that the world in question continues to exist. The Holocaust is currently very bad for Beijing. They will have to say something about it.
