As Ukraine Fires U.S. Missiles, Putin Sends a Chilling Message
In many ways, President Vladimir V.Putin seems to be winning.Russian forces are pushing ahead in Ukraine.
President-elect Donald J.Trump is returning to the White House.
War fatigue is spreading across Europe.North Korean troops have boosted the ranks of his army.And yet on Thursday, Mr.
Putin appeared weary, threatened and newly aggrieved as he took his bellicose threats against his Western adversaries to a new level.Even with the prospect of a friendlier American administration around the corner, he has found himself struggling anew to confront perhaps the biggest failure of his war: Russia’s inability to deter the West from providing colossal amounts of military aid to Ukraine.As a result, Mr.
Putin is bringing Russia closer to a direct conflict with the United States than at any point in decades.He announced Thursday evening that Russia had struck Ukraine with a new intermediate-range missile, one with nuclear capabilities, using a televised speech casting the West as an aggressor that left Moscow with no choice but to respond.Two months from now, Mr.
Trump’s second presidency could give Mr.Putin the chance to strike a peace deal with Ukraine that he could portray as a victory.
But until then, people who study the Kremlin say, Mr.Putin is intent on driving home the chilling message that America risks nuclear war as it expands its support for Kyiv.“The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities,” Dmitri S.
Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, said on Friday.“The contours of further retaliatory actions, if our concerns are not taken into account, have also been quite clearly outlined.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
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