World War III fears mount after Russia threatens to attack more European countries

Russia’s repeated threatening of the Baltic states could see a new front open in Europe, US officials have warned.

Moscow has regularly and falsely accused Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania of facilitating drone strikes on Russia’s key oil ports.

There are fears Moscow is seeking to open a new front against the West, a move that some fear could potentially trigger World War III.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: ‘We understand these countries feel threatened by it, obviously, for obvious reasons.

‘So, it’s a concerning thing, because you always worry that something like that can spark into something bigger, and that’s always a possibility.’

He warned of a ‘fear of escalation’, saying Washington was closely monitoring the mounting tension.

Nordic and Baltic states united to reject Russia’s ‘blatant disinformation campaign and false claims’ after Moscow alleged the countries were allowing Ukraine to use their territory or airspace for attacks on Kremlin territory.

‘The Nordic-Baltic countries have never allowed their territory or airspace to be used for these attacks against targets in Russia,’ said the foreign ministers of the NB8 states, which include Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

In Black Sea naval port of Novorossiysk, the Grushovaya oil terminal, a subsidiary of Transneft, the largest oil storage facility in the Caucasus, was ablaze.

It has a total capacity of about 1.2million tons of petroleum products.

Smoke was also seen rising from the Shesharis oil loading terminal on the Novorossiysk coast.

In a long-distance strike, Ukraine also hit Perm in the Urals, a distance of 1,000-plus miles.

The Metafrax chemical plant, supplying hexamine and pentaerythritol, used for explosives and weapons production, was on fire.

The growing tension around Russia’s war is now stretching far beyond Ukraine itself.

While Moscow accuses NATO-bordering Baltic countries of helping facilitate attacks on Russian infrastructure, fresh missile strikes are continuing to devastate Ukrainian cities…

Russia has used its hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile in an attack on Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced.

In a post on Telegram on Sunday, he said Russia struck the city of Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region with the missile, which is capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads.

Russia’s defence ministry later confirmed it used the Oreshnik, as well as other missile types, to strike Ukrainian ‘military command and control facilities’, air bases and military industrial enterprises.

The ministry said the attack was a retaliation following Ukrainian strikes on ‘civilian facilities on Russian territory’.

It marks the third time the missile – which Russian President Vladimir Putin has said reaches up to 10 times the speed of sound and is capable of destroying underground bunkers – has been used in Ukraine.

At least two people were killed and 56 people were injured as air raid sirens blared through the night into Sunday as smoke billowed across the city from the strikes.

The combined attack included 600 strike drones and 90 air, sea and ground-launched missiles, according to Ukraine’s Air Force.

It said Ukrainian air defences destroyed and jammed 549 drones and 55 missiles, and around 19 missiles failed to reach targets.

Zelensky had earlier warned that Russia was planning to use the Oreshnik missile, citing intelligence from the US and Western partners.

Damage was recorded in 40 locations across several districts of the city, including residential buildings, Kyiv military administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a Telegram post.

Kyiv resident Svitlana Onofryichuk, 55, said: ‘It was a terrible night, and there had never been anything like it in the entire war.

‘I am very sorry that I have to say goodbye to Kyiv now, I am not staying there anymore, there is no possibility. My job is gone, everything is gone, everything has burned down.’

Yevhen Zosin, 74, who witnessed the attack, said the moment he heard an explosion, he rushed to save his dog.

‘Then there was another explosion, and she and I were thrown back like a pin by the shock wave. We both survived, she and I. My apartment was blown to pieces,’ he said.

In Kyiv’s Shevchenko district, a five-storey residential building was hit, which caused a fire, and one person was killed, Ukraine’s state emergency service reported.

A school building was damaged by an attack while people sheltered inside, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said. Local authorities reported supermarkets and warehouses across the city were also damaged.

Russia first used the multiple-warhead Oreshnik on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024. It was used a second time in January in the western Lviv region.

President Vladimir Putin has said the weapon travels ‘like a meteorite’ and is immune to any missile defence system, adding that several such missiles, even fitted with conventional warheads, could be as devastating as a nuclear strike.

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Source: World War III fears mount after Russia threatens attacks | News World | Metro News