Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that he had ordered the Russian Aerospace Forces to begin constant patrolling of the airspace over the Black Sea with fighter jets armed with Kinzhal (“Dagger”) missiles, TASS reported.
“On my instructions, the Russian Aerospace Forces conduct constant patrols in the neutral zone of the airspace over the Black Sea. Our MiG-31s are armed with Kinjal systems,” he said at a press conference after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing.
Putin came to China to take part in a forum on the Belt and Road Initiative, an infrastructure project that has seen Beijing greatly expand its global influence over the past decade. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also took part in the forum, where he met with Putin.
The Kremlin chief said at a press conference on Wednesday that the Kinjal missiles have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers and reach speeds of Mach 9, but insisted that the decision to start permanent patrols over the Black Sea does not pose a “threat”. .
Vladimir Putin says the latest major US decision will not affect the fighting in Ukraine
Putin said he was only “briefing” on the decision, but again accused the United States of getting more involved in the war in Ukraine, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed a day earlier that Washington had supplied his country with ATACMS long-range attack missiles .
Information about this appeared in the American press since last month, but was officially confirmed by Washington or Kyiv only this Tuesday.
On Wednesday, Putin said that the US decision was a “mistake” but that it would in no way affect the development of hostilities at the front.
“First, it causes harm and creates an additional threat. Second, we will certainly be able to repel these attacks. War is war,” he said during a press conference in China.
“But the most important thing is that he does not have the fundamental ability to change the situation on the sideline at all. It’s impossible, that’s for sure,” he added.
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Source: Hot News
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