Just last month, the head of Roscosmos, Russia’s space agency, warned the West that if they did not “speak kindly” to the Kremlin, Russia would target it with Sarmat missiles. Dmitry Rogozin, who is also a close ally of Putin, described Sarmat as “the most powerful nuclear missile in the world” and boasted that he could knock down “half the coast of a continent” of a Russian enemy.
Match for the exclusion of Lithuania
Putin’s strike came amid a clash with EU member Lithuania, which has severely curtailed the flow of goods between mainland Russia and the westernmost enclave of Kaliningrad, citing EU sanctions. Putin’s top ally said in Lithuania on Tuesday that Moscow would respond to the EU-approved transit of goods to Kaliningrad in such a way that Baltic citizens could feel the pain. Nikolai Patrushev, a former KGB spy who is now secretary of Russia’s security council, said Lithuania’s “hostile” actions showed that Russia could not trust the West, which he said had violated written agreements on Kaliningrad. “Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions,” Patrushev was quoted as saying by the state-run RIA news agency.
