Ukraine’s use of powerful U.S. weapon won’t change war’s outcome, Putin says – National | 24CA News
A Russian missile assault killed two civilians in an condominium constructing in southern Ukraine on Wednesday, native authorities stated, as President Vladimir Putin dismissed the significance of a brand new U.S.-supplied weapon that Kyiv used to execute some of the damaging assaults on the Kremlin’s air property because the begin of the struggle.
Putin instructed reporters that Russia “will be able to repel” additional assaults by the U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System, often known as ATACMS.
Ukraine claimed it used these missiles to destroy 9 Russian helicopters, in addition to ammunition, an air protection system and different property at two airfields in Russia-occupied areas on Tuesday.
That improvement got here as the 2 sides seemed to realize battlefield benefits and consolidate their positions forward of the winter when the climate would hamper operations.
The ATACMS will shift the battlefield structure to some extent as Russia might want to disperse its plane and ammunition depots. It had used plane to cease Ukraine’s ongoing counteroffensive.
Putin, talking to reporters throughout a go to to Beijing, conceded the ATACMS creates an extra risk however he insisted that the weapon wouldn’t change the scenario alongside the 1,500-kilometer (932-mile) entrance line.
“For Ukraine, in this sense, there’s nothing good … it only prolongs the agony,” he stated.
Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Anatoly Antonov, described Washington’s determination to provide the ATACMS as “reckless” and “a grave mistake” that gained’t alter the struggle’s end result.
The preventing has floor largely to a stalemate, with a protracted struggle of attrition anticipated at the least by way of subsequent yr.
The U.Okay. protection ministry stated Wednesday that the Kremlin’s forces are at present attempting to push ahead in some components of japanese Ukraine. However, the areas are effectively defended and it’s “highly unlikely” the Russians will accomplish their objective of a serious breakthrough, it stated in an evaluation posted on social media platform X, previously often known as Twitter.
Wednesday’s assault killed two Ukrainian civilians and wounded at the least three others when a Russian missile struck a constructing within the central district of the southern metropolis of Zaporizhzhia, the area’s Gov. Yurii Malashko stated.
The assault apparently used six S-300 missiles, which took solely 42 seconds to succeed in town after being launched from Russian-controlled Ukraine land, in response to Malashko.
Russia’s protection ministry, in the meantime, claimed its forces shot down 28 Ukrainian drones within the Belgorod and Kursk areas and within the Black Sea space. It didn’t present additional particulars.
It wasn’t instantly doable to confirm the 2 sides’ battlefield claims.
AP journalist Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.
© 2023 The Canadian Press
