Russia will “intensify” its attacks on military targets in Ukraine in response to the unprecedented scale of the Ukrainian army’s bombing of the Russian city of Belgorod this weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday, AFP reports.

“We will intensify the strikes, no crime against the civilian population will go unpunished, that’s for sure,” Putin said during a visit to a military hospital, declaring that these strikes would be carried out “on military facilities.”

“With high-precision weapons, we hit decision-making places, places where soldiers and mercenaries gather, other similar centers, first of all, military facilities. And they are very sensitive, these blows. This is what we will continue to do,” Putin added.

Describing the terrorist attack in Belgorod as a “terrorist act”, as a result of which 24 people were killed and more than a hundred wounded on Saturday, Putin accused Ukrainian forces of striking “right in the center of the city, where people were walking before New Year’s Eve.”

Putin, however, believed that “Ukraine is not an enemy” per se, and accused the West of using power in Kyiv to “solve its own problems” with Russia.

The President of the Russian Federation also assessed that Moscow’s troops now have a “strategic initiative” on the Ukrainian front, where they are strengthening after the failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer.

The explosion in Belgorod occurred on Friday after a series of attacks by the Russian army on Ukrainian cities, as a result of which about forty people died. (Agerpress)