Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Vice Chairman of the Security Council, said yesterday that his country is intensifying the production of powerful weapons based on “new principles”, hinting at their use against the West.
And Medvedev added in his account on the Telegram app: “Our enemy has not only dug in in the Kiev province in Little Russia (a regional administrative unit of the former Russian Empire), he is also present in Europe, North America, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, etc.
“For this reason, we are intensifying the production of the most powerful weapons, including on new principles,” he added.
The specter of nuclear war has returned since the attack on Ukraine began in February, highlighting the erosion of the global security architecture built during the Cold War.
This week, President Putin reaffirmed that nuclear weapons are a “defense tool” designed to “retaliate” if his country is targeted by those weapons.
It also raised the possibility that Russia might change its military doctrine by adopting a pre-emptive strike principle to disarm the adversary.
For their part, the authorities installed by Russia in the strategically important city of Melitopol said: Ukraine attacked the occupied city in the southeast of the country last night.
The pro-Moscow authorities added that two people were killed and ten injured in the rocket attack, while the exiled mayor said that dozens of occupiers had died.
“Air defense systems destroyed two missiles, four reached the target,” the Moscow-appointed governor of the occupied part of the Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Paletsky, said in the Telegram application.
Paletsky added that during the Ukrainian attack, HIMARS missiles destroyed a recreation center where people had lunch.
The exiled mayor Ivan Fedorov reported on his Telegram channel that the church, which the Russians turned into a gathering place, was shelled. Video clip of the burning building.
Oleksiy Aristovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Melitopol, a major industrial and transport hub that Russia has occupied since March, is the key to defending the south.