Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Ukraine on Thursday claimed that Russia fired a nuclear-capable Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) inside it, but Moscow said it had “nothing to say.”
Ironically, Russia did not even deny it! Maybe, it also revelled in the confusion.
Did Ukraine, therefore, parrot what its Western handlers asked it to?
Russia may have taken it as a desperate US attempt by the outgoing Biden administration to make things difficult for the next President, Donald Trump, who has vowed to end the Ukraine war.
The Ukrainian Air Force, in a statement, said Russia launched the missiles at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro this morning to cripple Ukrainian infrastructure.
The strike targeted enterprises and critical infrastructure in Dnipro, a central-eastern Ukrainian city. It was, however, unclear whether these missiles caused significant damage.
According to the media reports, this is the first time Moscow has “used” this weapon in the ongoing 33-month-old conflict.
“In particular, an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Astrakhan region of the Russian Federation,” Ukraine said, without immediately sharing the details or the types of warheads it carried, the media reported.
The firing of the ICBM with a conventional (non-nuclear) warhead is a stern warning to Ukraine and its Western allies that Moscow’s red lines must be respected, the reports said.
It happened a day after President Vladimir Putin updated Moscow’s nuclear doctrine, making even non-nuclear armed nations, supported by nuclear-armed ones, vulnerable to Moscow’s nuclear attack.
The ICBMs are traditionally designed to carry both nuclear and conventional warheads.
Moscow’s response came days after US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer allowed Ukraine to use Western-made long-range cruise and ballistic missiles to target deeper in the Russian territory. Within hours of those approvals from Washington and London, Kyiv fired a US-made ATACMS missile and a UK-made ‘Storm Shadow’ missile targeting Russian territories.
When asked about the ICBM issue, the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he had “nothing to say on this topic.”
After Donald Trump’s November victory, the Democrats, smarting because of an unexpected loss of power, seem to be digging the pitch for the Trump II administration ahead of its taking office on January 20, 2025.
As part of this pattern, while the left-liberal Biden-Starmer duo provoked Ukraine to escalate its attack on Russia, Washington sought to further discredit India’s Adani Group with untenable charges making headlines—from Hindenburg then, to the fresh alleged bribery case now.
This is the ‘scorched earth policy’ of frustrated politicians who take revenge on their rivals by digging their pitch before they start functioning.
On November 20, Ukraine fired British-made ‘Storm Shadow’ missiles, striking targets deep inside Russian territory, marking a significant escalation in the conflict that has now lasted 1,000 days.
Earlier, Ukraine also fired six US-made ATACMS missiles at Russia’s Bryansk region, just days after Biden eased restrictions.