LONDON — The US embassy in Kiev temporarily closed its doors on Wednesday “out of an abundance of caution” as it warned of a “significant” airstrike.
“The U.S. Embassy advises U.S. citizens to be prepared to shelter in place immediately in the event of an air alert,” the embassy said. an update.
A picture shows a view of the US embassy in Kiev on May 18, 2022, as the embassy reopens after three months of closure due to the Russian invasion.
Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
The embassy said it has received “accurate” information about the possible strike on November 20.
The warning came amid fears the war could escalate, a day after Ukraine’s military first went into action. US-made long-range ATACMS missiles to targets inside Russia. the president of the usa Joe Biden Kiev was authorized to carry out those strikes earlier this week, US officials told ABC News.
Tuesday’s strike came just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an updated nuclear doctrine for his country that Russia said it had defeated. A Kremlin spokesman said the updates “suggest that the use of Western non-nuclear rockets by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against Russia could trigger a nuclear response.”
A spokesman for the US Defense Department tried to play down the update on Tuesday, saying Russia had indicated it would update the doctrine “in the last few weeks”.
“It’s the same irresponsible rhetoric that we’ve seen before and we’ve seen frankly over the last two years,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said. a transcript. “So it’s something that we will continue to monitor, but we have no indication that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon inside Ukraine.”
He added that Russia has taken an “act of escalation” by moving North Korean soldiers into the Russian battlefield.
Russia, meanwhile, accused the Biden administration of trying to prolong the conflict in recent months.
“In general, if we look at the trends shown by the outgoing US administration, they are determined, they are absolutely determined to prolong the war in Ukraine and they are doing everything they can to do this in the time they have,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. he told reporters on Wednesday, according to Russia’s Interfax news agency.
Ukrainian service workers use spotlights as they search for drones in the sky above the city during a Russian drone strike in Kiev, Ukraine, on November 20, 2024.
Gleb Garanich/Reuters
Ukraine’s air force said on Wednesday morning that Russia had fired 122 unmanned drones overnight into regions across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv. At least 56 of the drones launched were shot down, the military said.
Several guided missiles were also fired towards the Dnipro region in the southeast, along with the Chernihiv and Sumy regions in the northeast. And an anti-aircraft missile was fired towards Kharkiv, the air force said.
Inna Sovsun, a member of the Ukrainian parliament: “Those who ask Ukrainians if they fear Putin’s escalation clearly haven’t woken up to the sound of hypersonic missiles exploding over their cities. he said on Wednesday in social networks
ABC News’ Morgan Winsor, Joe Simonetti, David Brennan and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
