Putin has promised ‘severe’ responses to any Ukrainian attacks on Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday vowed “tough” responses to any new Ukrainian attacks against Russia after the Crimean bridge, a strategic infrastructure and symbol of the Ukrainian peninsula’s unification, was partially destroyed on Saturday.

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“If attempts at terrorist attacks on our territory continue, Russia’s responses will be severe and their scale will correspond to the scale of the threats,” Vladimir Putin warned at the start of the Russian meeting of the Security Council.

No one should have any doubts’, he warned.

In response to the attack on the Crimean bridge, the Russian leader indicated that Moscow had launched a “massive” bombing campaign in several Ukrainian regions.

He said the Russian military had used “long-range high-precision weapons” in the morning against “Ukraine’s energy, military and communications infrastructure”.

For the first time since June 26, the capital Kyiv was hit by explosions, AFP journalists noted, and according to local authorities, many cities were without electricity by the end of the morning.

By targeting the Crimean bridge on Saturday, Ukraine “put itself on the same level as the most brutal terrorists,” according to Vladimir Putin. “That’s not possible [y] Answer,” he said in front of officers of the Russian security forces.

Mr Putin said the Ukrainian military had attacked the Russian nuclear power plant in Kursk (south-west), 85 km from the Ukrainian border, “three times” in the past, and that it had also tried to attack the Turkstream gas pipeline. Connects Russia to Turkey via the Black Sea.

“The goal of the strikes has been achieved. All targets were hit,” said Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Mr. Putin’s statements were welcomed minutes later.

Dmitry Medvedev, the number two of Russia’s Security Council and former president, assured that the massive strikes against Ukraine were only a “first chapter”, calling for the “complete dismantling” of Ukrainian political power.

“The first chapter has been played and there will be others,” he wrote in a telegram after a council meeting chaired by Vladimir Putin. “From my point of view [l’objectif] “It should be a total overthrow of the political regime in Ukraine,” Medvedev said.

According to him, “the Ukrainian state, in its current configuration – a Nazi political regime – will be a permanent, direct and clear threat to Russia”.

A bridge linking the Russian territory to the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, was partially destroyed by a truck bomb on Saturday, Russian officials said.

Kiev does not claim the operation because the bridge is strategic, serving the Russian military in southern Ukraine and the people living in Crimea.

Mr Putin has made the bridge, which he opened in 2018, a symbol of Russian power and its determination to retain control of the annexed peninsula.