The hypersonic missiles that Russia says it used to destroy military targets in Ukraine “are not a game-changer” in the face of resistance from the Ukrainian army, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Sunday.
“I don’t see them as [des armements] which are game-changing,” Mr. Austin told the American television channel CBS, while refusing to “confirm or deny” that Moscow used this type of missile.
Russia claimed on Sunday, for the second day in a row, to have used hypersonic missiles in Ukraine. If this shot were proven, it would be the first known use in real combat conditions of this system tested for the first time in 2018.
By using such weapons, Russia is “trying to regain momentum” in the conflict its army has become bogged down in, Lloyd Austin said. ” We saw [les Russes] deliberately targeting cities and civilians in recent weeks […] because the offensive is blocked,” said the American minister.
Russian troops “are not effective in their movements on the ground, they are mostly blocked” against Ukrainian fighters “who are fighting valiantly and who remain determined to defend their country”, he added.
Vladimir Putin has “sent his troops to the shredder”, argued the Pentagon chief, saying that the Ukrainians are “very effective thanks to the armament that we have provided to them”, such as anti-tank and anti-tank defense systems. Aerial.
Lloyd Austin also warned Russia against using chemical or biological weapons in the conflict. There would then be “a significant reaction not only from the United States, but also from the international community”, he said.
Moscow, which accuses Washington and kyiv of running laboratories intended to produce internationally prohibited biological and chemical weapons in Ukraine, wants “to fabricate a pretext so that, if they [les Russes] did something on the battlefield, they can blame someone else, the Ukrainians, us, NATO,” he explained.