Daily Times

Russian President Vladimir Putin addressed the nation on Thursday evening to respond to days of escalation in the Ukraine conflict.

He said Moscow had fired a new generation intermediate-range missile on Ukraine and warned that the conflict was taking on a “global character”.

Here’s his address in full, based on a transcript provided by the Kremlin and translated from Russian by AFP:

“I want to update the personnel of the Russian armed forces, the citizens of our country, our friends throughout the world and those who continue to harbour illusions about the possibility of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia, about the events that are taking place today in the zone of the special military operation. Specifically, following the use of Western-made long-range weapons on our territory.

Continuing the course of escalating the Ukraine conflict, which was originally provoked by the West, the United States and its NATO allies announced that they are authorising the use of their long-range precision-guided weapons systems on the territory of the Russian Federation.

It is well known to experts, and the Russian side has repeatedly emphasised this, that it is impossible to use such weapons without the direct involvement of military specialists from the countries that produce them.

On 19 November, six US-made ATACMS tactical missiles, and then on 21 November, UK-made Storm Shadow and US-made HIMARS systems in a combined attack, struck military facilities on the territory of the Russian Federation, in the Bryansk and Kursk regions.

From that moment, as we have repeatedly emphasised before, the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West took on elements of a global character.

Our air defence systems repelled these attacks. As a result, the goals that were obviously set by the enemy were not achieved.

A fire at an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region caused by the fall of ATACMS missile debris was extinguished, and there were no casualties or serious damage.

In the Kursk region, an attack was carried out on one of the command posts of our ‘North’ troop group. As a result of the attack and air defence combat, there are, unfortunately, casualties — dead and wounded among the personnel of the facility’s external security units and maintenance personnel. The command and operational staff of the control centre were not wounded and are operating normally, managing our troops’ actions to destroy and expel enemy units from the Kursk region.

Once again, I would like to emphasise that the use of such weapons by the enemy is not able to affect the course of combat operations in the zone of the special military operation. Our troops are successfully advancing along the entire frontline. All the goals that we have set will be accomplished.

In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21, the Russian Armed Forces launched a combined strike on a facility of the Ukrainian defence-industrial complex.

They tested one of Russia’s newest intermediate-range missile systems in combat conditions. In this case, a ballistic missile with a non-nuclear hypersonic configuration. Our missile engineers named it ‘Oreshnik.’

The tests were carried out successfully, the goal of the launch was achieved. On the territory of Ukraine, in the city of Dnipropetrovsk (AFP: Dnipro in Ukrainian), one of the largest industrial complexes, well known since the days of the Soviet Union, which still produces missile equipment and other weapons, was hit.

We are developing intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles as a response to the United States’ plans to produce and deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. We believe that the United States made a mistake by unilaterally breaking the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty in 2019 under far-fetched pretexts.