Russia’s President Vladimir Putin assured this Tuesday that his country is producing as many anti-aircraft missiles as all countries in the world combined, in response to the alleged ammunition shortage in the Russian military.
“In terms of anti-aircraft missiles of different classes, Russian production is comparable to world production”emphasized the Russian head of state during a meeting in the Kremlin with Viacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
Putin stressed that Russia produces “three times more” anti-aircraft missiles than the United States for Patriot air defense systems.
“The military performance on the battlefield shows that the Russian anti-aircraft defense is one of the best in the world. In addition, our systems are of course modern and reliable. Anything can happen, but in general they work flawlessly.”he stressed, quoted by the agency Efe.
In December, coinciding with a visit to Washington by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the United States announced the deployment of Patriot systems in Kiev to neutralize bombing by Russian forces.
According to Putin, his country will find “an antidote” against the patriots, whom he considered “quite old” and who don’t work “as well” as Russia’s S-300.
“Let’s Crush Them” like nuts, he added, referring to the US defense system.
Last week, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced that his country also plans to ship parts of the Patriot system to Ukraine.
During the meeting with the governor of Belgorod, Vladimir Putin also spoke about providing support for housing construction for those who had to be evacuated from the border with Ukraine for security reasons.
Belgorod is the region that has suffered the most attacks since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and at least 25 people have been killed and nearly 100 injured in the Ukrainian attacks, the local governor announced on Tuesday.
It is the first time in 11 months of conflict that Russian authorities have officially announced the number of dead and wounded in a specific region.
The military offensive launched by Russia in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has so far led to the flight of more than 14 million people – 6.5 million internally displaced persons and nearly eight million to European countries – according to the latest data from the UN, which classifies this refugee crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945).
Currently, 17.7 million Ukrainians need humanitarian aid and 9.3 million need food aid and shelter.
The invasion, justified by the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, with the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russian security, was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Minsk, and political and political impose economic sanctions on Moscow.
The UN presented 7,068 dead civilians and 11,415 wounded as confirmed since the start of the war, underlining that these numbers are far below the actual ones.
Source: DN
