The Kremlin has conveyed to the Biden administration that every time Russian forces are hit by U.S.-made missiles launched by Ukraine, their forces will carry out significant strikes against Ukrainian targets.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a briefing last Friday that President Putin "has warned that authorizing [Ukraine] to use U.S. and other foreign-made missiles is an irresponsible and escalatory step."
"If [the Ukrainian side] uses these missiles, there will be appropriate responses each time," he warned.
Before this new warning, Putin claimed that Russia might use a new type of medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile, 'Oreshnik', to strike Ukraine's 'decision-making centers'. "As I have repeatedly said, we will always respond," emphasized Putin.
Over the past week, Ukraine has been subjected to record-scale drone and missile strikes for several consecutive days, primarily targeting the country's energy infrastructure. This has led to widespread power outages in Ukraine or forced implementation of rolling blackouts.
According to Moscow's description, the attacks on Thursday night involved 90 missiles and approximately 100 drones.
Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko stated that the national power infrastructure has been subjected to large-scale attacks by the enemy.
"The energy sector has once again been subjected to large-scale attacks by the enemy. Energy facilities across Ukraine have been attacked," said Galushchenko.
Emergency power outages have been confirmed in Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro, and Donetsk regions. Ukraine stated that although temperatures hover around 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), it still had to "urgently implement power outages."
Outside of Ukraine, NATO's actions also seem to show signs of escalating the conflict. Here is a summary of events reported by Al Jazeera:
The head of the UK's MI6 foreign intelligence agency stated that Russia is conducting an "extremely reckless campaign of sabotage" in Europe while also ramping up nuclear threats to intimidate other countries supporting Ukraine.
Poland has deployed Leopard 2 main battle tanks in Latvia to reinforce NATO forces there.
German defense giant Rheinmetall has signed an agreement with Lithuania to begin constructing a $190 million ammunition factory in the country to produce shells.
A source from the German Parliament's budget committee told AFP that German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius wants to order four new submarines to help meet NATO's security requirements in Europe.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency BfV has warned that other countries may attempt to influence the upcoming federal elections.
Financial blog Zero Hedge commented that when President-elect Trump takes office on January 20 next year, if he hopes to quickly end the war through negotiations, he will surely be busy on the diplomatic front, as the conflict currently seems likely to escalate.
The article is forwarded from: Golden Ten Data