Worthy Christian News > World News > Russia Threatens Using Nuclear Weapons After Moscow Attacks (Worthy News In-Depth)

Russia Threatens Using Nuclear Weapons After Moscow Attacks (Worthy News In-Depth)

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

MOSCOW/KYIV/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – Russia’s president accused Ukraine of terrorism after drones hit Moscow, the capital, and at least one of his allies suggested using nuclear weapons in response.

Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks that the strikes followed a Russian attack “on Ukraine’s military intelligence headquarters” recently, though those claims could not be verified.

Putin claimed that Ukraine had chosen the path of attempting “to intimidate Russia, Russian citizens [with] attacks on residential buildings” and added that the drone strikes were “clearly a sign of terrorist activity.”

Dozens of kamikaze drones appeared to target wealthy suburbs of Moscow where Putin’s allies, including oligarchs and politicians, have luxury retreats.

Several were shot down over the plush district of Rublyovka but caused damage and injuries as the Ukraine war appeared to be coming to Putin’s backyard.

Footage showed a mushroom cloud caused by a drone around 3.2 kilometers (two miles) from the village of Usovo, close to Putin’s official Novo-Ogaryovo Moscow residence.

DEFENSE MINISTRY

Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and other politicians and oligarchs live nearby in an area dubbed Moscow’s “golden mile.”

The Russian defense ministry said eight drones targeted Moscow overnight, but Russian media close to security services said over 30 drones participated in the attack.

Three of the drones hit residential buildings in the southwest of the city, but no explosions were reported, officials said.

Two people were injured in the attack, confirmed Sergei Sobyanin, the Moscow mayor, who added that buildings sustained “minor damage.”

Video footage showed broken windows and a blackened facade at one address hit by a drone early Tuesday morning. Residents said they heard loud bangs followed by the smell of petrol.

Moscow had so far remained mainly undisturbed by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, in which hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians on both sides have been killed and injured.

BOSS OUTRAGED

The boss of Russia’s Wagner Group of mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, expressed “outrage” that Putin’s troops failed to stop the barrage of drones reaching the Russian capital.

Earlier this month, Prigozhin again branded Putin’s defense chiefs “scum” who get fat in offices while leaving his mercenary troops to die without ammunition.

Russia blamed Kyiv for the most extensive attack on Moscow since World War Two. However, Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak denied Ukraine was involved.

However, he predicted “an increase in the number of attacks” targeting Moscow after days of often deadly Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv.

While some Western leaders are concerned, James Cleverly, Britain’s foreign secretary, told reporters that Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to defend itself and can “project force” beyond its borders.

At a news conference in Estonia on Tuesday, Cleverly said: “[Ukraine] has the legitimate right to do so within its own borders, of course, but it does also have the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”

MORE STRIKES

Earlier this month, a video emerged of two drones exploding minutes apart above the Kremlin in what Russian officials said was a Ukrainian attack targeting Putin despite Kyiv’s denials.

One of the drones used in Tuesday morning’s drone raid on Moscow appeared to have been a Ukrainian-manufactured UJ 22 drone produced by the Ukrjet company, sources said.

Alleged footage of the drone, captured in flight during the attack, appears to match images of the unmanned aerial vehicle, which Russia said was used in other attempted attacks.

The attacks have raised international concerns that the conflict could escalate into a more serious Western standoff with Russia, which has the world’s largest nuclear stockpile.

Already on Tuesday, hardline pro-Putin legislators were suggesting a nuclear response.

Parliamentarian Oleg Nilov said: “Moscow was subject to a drone attack by the Ukrainian terrorist state. Our response can be made from all available options of the Russian Armed Forces – tactical nuclear weapons won’t stay shelved for too long.”

‘DISMANTLE CITIES’

The Russian television propagandist Vladimir Solovyov called for the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Lviv to be “dismantled” following the drone strikes on Moscow. “There should be strikes on those cities today, much more brutal than our current ones,” he said. “It’s war. It can no longer be any other way.”

He added: “We are fighting against [the Western military alliance] NATO. This needs to be understood. NATO has supplied everything for Russia’s destruction. That simply needs to be understood.”

Earlier, the authoritarian president of neighboring Belarus said if any other country wanted to join a Russia-Belarus union, there could be “nuclear weapons for everyone.”

President Alexander Lukashenko told Russian television on Sunday that “No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation.

So, “If someone is worried … it is very simple — join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. That’s all — there will be nuclear weapons for everyone,” he pledged.

Russia went ahead last week with deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, the first deployment of such warheads outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

The placement of the nuclear weapons and Tuesday’s strikes on Moscow raised international fears that the war in Ukraine may escalate into a global armed conflict involving atomic arms.