Vladimir Putin announced on Monday that Russia would “intensify” its attacks on military targets in Ukraine in response to the Ukrainian military's unprecedented bombing of the Russian city of Belgorod this weekend.
“We will intensify the strikes and no crime against citizens will go unpunished, that's for sure,” said Mr. Putin made the announcement during a visit to a military hospital.
“We are the places where we make decisions with precision weapons, places where soldiers and mercenaries gather, other centers of this kind, above all military installations. And they are very sensitive, these strikes. C “This is what we will continue. Must do,” Mr. Putin continued.
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Describing Saturday's Belgorod bombing, which killed 24 people and injured more than a hundred, as a “terrorist act,” he accused Ukrainian forces of “striking right into the center of the city, where people were walking anew. Year Eve.”
However, Mr. Putin considered “Ukraine not an enemy” and accused the West of using Kiev officials to “solve their own problems” with Russia.
The Russian president also estimated that Moscow's forces now have the “strategic initiative” in Ukraine, where they have been building up since the failed Ukrainian summer counteroffensive.
The strike on Belgorod follows Friday's Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities, killing around 40 people.
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