Saturday, November 23, 2024 - Britain’s armed forces would be ready to fight Russia “tonight” if Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded another eastern European country, according to a top UK military official has said after Putin warned that new ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine this week cannot be intercepted by any air Defence in the world.
President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Russia will continue
to test the hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik,” which it fired at
Ukraine on Thursday.
In a televised meeting with the leadership of Russia’s
defense ministry, Putin claimed the missile could not be intercepted by air
defenses and said Russia will begin serial production of the new system.
“There are currently no means
of countering such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world. And I
will emphasize once again: We will continue testing the latest system,” Putin
said.
He said Russia was developing “several similar systems” for
further testing.
“Based on the test results,
these weapons will also go into production. That is, we are developing a whole
line of medium- and shorter-range systems,” he added.
Putin’s comments come a day after Russia fired the
“Oreshnik” missile which contains multiple warheads at Ukraine’s Dnipro region.
Kyiv initially accused Russia of firing an intercontinental
ballistic missile (ICBM) at Ukraine, although Western officials later said the
weapon was an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile. According to
US and Western officials, the ballistic missile carried multiple warheads,
which may be the first time such a weapon has been used in war.
Responding Rob Magowan, deputy chief of the British defense
staff, told a parliament defense committee;
“If the British Army was
asked to fight tonight, it would fight tonight. And I don’t think anybody in
this room should be under any illusion that if the Russians invaded eastern
Europe tonight, then we would meet them in that fight,”
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