A Russian state television media Friday declared that World War III has already started after the sinking of its naval vessel Moskva in the Ukraine war.
Moscow warned Friday it would step up missile attacks on Kyiv in response to what it said were sorties across the border, the day after its Black Sea naval flagship sank.
Olga Skabeyeva, one of Putin's top media figures in the tightly controlled state-run Russian media, bizarrely claimed that the war in Ukraine had escalated into a war against Nato.
"What it’s escalated into can safely be called World War Three. That’s entirely for sure. Now we are definitely fighting against NATO infrastructure, if not NATO itself. We need to recognise that," she said in the broadcast here that was also widely shared on the social media platform Twitter.
Another anchor Olesya Loseva, the host of Vremya Pokazhet, reportedly told viewers that the West was now supplying 'zillions of weapons' to Ukraine.
The explosions were reported to have been heard after the Russian defence ministry announced that the Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, had sunk while being towed after being badly damaged.
While Russia's defence ministry spoke only of a fire breaking out and of exploding ammunition, Ukraine claimed it hit the Moskva with anti-ship cruise missiles and that these sparked the fire that detonated the ammunition.
Earlier in the day, the Russian Defence Ministry Friday claimed it had struck a military target on the edge of Kyiv overnight with cruise missiles and promised more strikes against the Ukrainian capital in response to Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets.
The ministry further informed that the Russian forces had also taken full control of the Ilyich Steel Plant, Ukraine’s second-largest steelmaker, in the besieged port city of Mariupol.
The defence ministry also claimed to have struck the 'Vizar' factory on the edge of the Ukrainian capital in its overnight missile strikes on Kyiv which it said made and repaired missiles, including anti-ship missiles.
(with agency inputs)
