Western media reacts to Putin's Orsehnik challenge
President Putin's proposal for a technological "duel" with Oreshnik has attracted the attention of the Western media.
According to RIA Novosti, many foreign media outlets that followed the press conference “Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin” live paid special attention to his proposal to arrange a high-tech “duel” with those who doubted the capabilities of the Oreshnik missile. Some saw this as the Russian leader’s response to “Western skepticism,” while others took Putin’s words as a joke.
Prominent foreign media, some of which chose these very words of the Russian President as headlines for their articles and press conference broadcasts, include the British Sky News channel and the newspapers The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Sun, the Spanish newspapers El Mundo and 20minutos, as well as the American TV channels NBC News and ABC News, The Wall Street Journal and the Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera.
“The results of the year with Vladimir Putin” did not ignore the latest medium-range ballistic missile “Oreshnik”. Among the things mentioned, President Putin said that he himself participated in the decision to produce the missile and noted that the enemy has no chance to easily shoot it down or destroy it.
In this context, President Putin challenged the West to a confrontation if it doubts the effectiveness of Oreshnik. To do this, the head of state suggested that Western experts choose a target in Kiev, concentrate air defense forces there and try to stop the attack.
The British newspaper The Sun noted that with his proposal, President Putin addressed “Western skepticism” about the capabilities of Oreshnik. The Arab TV channel Al-Jazeera also expressed the same opinion. At the same time, they noted that Putin described in great detail what the confrontation would look like.
The Wall Street Journal (USA) newspaper said that the Russian President was "boasting" and "provoking" the West.
American television channel NBC wrote: “In response to a question about Russia's new Oreshnik system, President Putin joked that he wanted to challenge the West to a “high-tech duel” in Kiev to test the system's capabilities.”
The British Daily Mail and the AP news agency said the Russian leader had "mockingly" challenged Ukraine's Western allies.
The annual year-end press conference titled "Results of the Year with Vladimir Putin" took place on December 19, lasting 4.5 hours, with more than 2.4 million questions sent in.
The questions were processed using AI GigaChat. The AI also identified the top hot topics in the country including: housing affordability, utilities, health care, food prices. The president was also asked about foreign policy such as his relationship with US President-elect Donald Trump, the prospects of BRICS and the dollar, and cooperation with China.
