Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the rocket attacks on numerous Ukrainian cities as a reaction to “terrorist attacks” against Russian territory.
Objects of the energy infrastructure, military control and telecommunications were fired at with high-precision weapons, Putin said at a session of the National Security Council. The blows came from the sea, from the air and from the ground.
At the same time, the Russian President threatened Kyiv with even tougher action. “If the attempts to carry out terrorist attacks on our territory continue, the responses from the Russian side will be harsh – and their scale will correspond to the level of the threat to the Russian Federation,” said Putin. “No one should have any doubts about that.”
Specifically, Putin accused the Ukrainian secret service SBU of organizing a “terrorist attack” on the Russian Crimean bridge to the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea last Saturday. There, a truck coming from Russia and loaded with explosives is said to have exploded. The explosion, which was visible from afar, caught fire in the diesel-filled tank wagons of a goods wagon on the part of the railway bridge. Parts of the highway bridge fell into the water.
In addition, Putin claimed that there had already been three attacks on the Russian nuclear power plant in Kursk. A high-voltage line was hit once. He also accused Ukraine of shelling the nuclear power plant occupied by Russian troops in the Zaporizhia region annexed by Moscow. The Turk Stream gas pipeline, which was laid from Russia to Turkey, was also the target of an attack. After the gas leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 Baltic Sea pipelines, Putin again spoke of a “terrorist attack”. He criticized the fact that Russia was not involved in the investigation.
The 70-year-old accused the Ukrainian leadership of putting itself on the same level as the “worst international terrorist groups”. It was not possible for Russia to leave that unanswered. Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the Crimean Bridge attack or any other attacks on Russia itself. The leadership in Kyiv, in turn, accuses Russia of being a “terror state” that wants to wipe out Ukraine with a war of aggression.
