This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. On Tuesday, the Russian president sparked fears of an all-out war when he spoke to an investment forum in Moscow. Putin said that the Kremlin was prepared to fight fire with fire if the Western NATO alliance set up camp on Russia's doorstep. He was most concerned about the possibility of NATO deploying troops and hypersonic weapons capabilities in Ukraine.
Mr Putin said he hoped common sense would prevail, but he made it clear that Russia would respond with equally drastic measures if its national interests in the region are challenged. He said if there are any strike systems on the territory of Ukraine, the flight time to Moscow will be seven to 10 minutes and five minutes in the case of a hypersonic weapon being deployed. We will have to create something similar in relation to those who threaten us in that way. READ MORE: EU take on China in hydrogen war in third world.
Russia is one of the few countries with the ability to possess hypersonic weapons, along with the US and China. Hypersonic weapons are more than five times faster than the speed of sound Mach 5, unlike conventional ballistic missiles, they travel low through the atmosphere and are therefore much harder to intercept. Three years ago, Russian officials said that a missile from a submarine in the Barents Sea was 20 times faster than the speed of sound Mach 20 and absolutely invulnerable to any air or missile defence system.
He stated that he does not want to see NATO deploy its Mark 41 Vertical Launching System in Ukraine, which he claimed can be used to launch Tomahawk missiles. He said that creating such threats in Ukraine would be red lines for us. I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope that there will be a sense of common sense, responsibility for both our countries and the world community. Russian troops have been seen moving troops near Ukraine's border, and tensions between Russia and the West have been on a knife's edge. It came after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014.