Ukraine: Fury in Russia at missile move but Putin so far silent

Anger, yes. But no real surprise.

Komsomolskaya Pravda, the pro-Kremlin tabloid, called it “a predictable escalation”.

What really counts, though, is what Vladimir Putin calls it and how the Kremlin leader responds.

He said nothing on Sunday night.

But Russia’s president has said plenty before.

In recent months, the Kremlin has made its message to the West crystal clear: do not do this, do not remove restrictions on the use of your long-range weapons, do not allow Kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with these missiles.

In September President Putin warned that if this were allowed to happen, Moscow would view it as the “direct participation” of Nato countries in the Ukraine war.

“This would mean that Nato countries… are fighting with Russia,” he continued.

The following month, the Kremlin leader announced imminent changes to the Russian nuclear doctrine, the document setting out the preconditions under which Moscow might decide to use a nuclear weapon.

This was widely interpreted as another less-than-subtle hint to America and Europe not to allow Ukraine to strike Russian territory with long-range missiles.

Guessing Vladimir Putin’s next moves is never easy.

But he has dropped hints.

Back in June, at a meeting with the heads of international news agencies, Putin was asked: how would Russia react if Ukraine was given the opportunity to hit targets on Russian territory with weapons supplied by Europe?

“First, we will, of course, improve our air defence systems. We will be destroying their missiles,” President Putin replied.

“Second, we believe that if someone is thinking it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to strike our territory and create problems for us, why can’t we supply our weapons of the same class to those regions around the world where they will target sensitive facilities of the countries that are doing this to Russia?”

In other words, arming Western adversaries to strike Western targets abroad is something Moscow has been considering.