Vladimir Putin Has Tested a new hypersonic missile by firing it at Ukraine as he identified Britain as a legitimate target for the Russian military.
The weapon, called the “Oreshnik”, meaning hazelnut, was launched for the first time in response to strikes using British and American-supplied weapons, Putin said on Thursday.
“We are entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities,” Putin said in a surprise televised address.
“In the event of an aggressive escalation, we will respond just as decisively.”
His threat came after British Storm Shadow cruise missiles were fired into Russia for the first time by Ukraine on Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Joe Biden, the US president, also authorised the use of American Long-range ATACMS Weapons, which were initially used to Russia’s Bryansk region.
Volodymyr Zelensky has said that he intends to fire all the ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles at Russia that the US and Britain have given him.
Putin immediately responded to Mr Biden by lowering the threshold of his nuclear doctrine to allow a nuclear response after a conventional missile attack.
The Kremlin followed up this move with a series of heavy missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.
A salvo fired at the southern city of Dnipro included the “Oreshnik”. At least two people were injured in the attack.
Putin added: “In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on Nov 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.
“In combat conditions, one of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested, among other things. In this case, with a ballistic missile in a nuclear-free hypersonic equipment.”
Mr Zelensky called Russia an “insane neighbour” for using Ukraine as a missile test site.
He said that “a new Russian missile with all the parameters, speed and altitude, to match those of an intercontinental ballistic missile” had been fired at Ukraine and that his weapons experts were investigating.
A Downing Street spokesman called the attack “depraved, reckless and escalatory”.
Putin has been under pressure from hawks in the Kremlin and the Russian media to respond in force to Ukraine’s attacks on Russia with US and British missiles.
On Telegram, these commentators said that Putin had shown restraint but that his warning should be taken seriously.
Sergey Markov, a former Kremlin speech writer and pro-war commentator, said that “the world could breathe a sigh of relief” that Putin had this time not ordered a nuclear strike.
“But in a super-diplomatic manner, Putin said that Russia now has the right to launch a missile strike on US (and British) targets,” Mr Markov said.
Ukrainian officials had been briefing through the day that Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time called the RS-26 Rubezh from a launch site in Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea.
But UN weapons inspectors cast doubt on the claims.
They said that under an international treaty, the Kremlin was supposed to give the US a 24-hour warning before firing an intercontinental ballistic missile and the RS-26 Rubezh was an unlikely choice of weapon because it had been mothballed in 2018.
Andrey Baklitskiy, a weapons of mass destruction senior researcher for the UN, said allegations that Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at Ukraine “don’t make a lot of sense given their price and precision” and that analysis of the wreckage would reveal the exact type of missile.
Russia also declared a Nato missile defence base in Poland as one of its long-term “priority targets” for the first time.
Nato opened its missile defence base in Redzikowo near the Baltic coast last week.
It fits into an extended missile defence system installed across Europe. It is manned by the US Army although other Nato troops, including British soldiers, may rotate through the facility.
Although construction work started at the base in 2016, six years before the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and despite its defensive missile system,
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova said that the Kremlin saw it as a threat.
“The missile defence base in Poland has long been included among the priority targets for potential neutralisation,” she said. “This is another frankly provocative step in a series of deeply destabilising actions by the Americans and its allies.”
On the frontline running through eastern Ukraine, Russian soldiers continued to take ground using their swarm infantry tactics that overwhelmed Ukrainian defenders.
John Healy, the Defence Secretary, told a committee meeting in parliament that the frontline was now more “unstable” than at any time since 2022.
“This is a serious moment that I come before the committee,” he said in the hearing to mark 1,000 days of war in Ukraine. “Defence intelligence will reveal today that the frontline is now less stable than at any time since the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022.”
Putin has ordered his forces to step up attacks along the frontline to capture as much territory as possible before US President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office in January.
Mr Trump has said that he wants to impose a peace deal on Ukraine along the frontlines.
Putin to blame for escalation, says US
The White House has said that Russia has been to blame for “escalating at every turn” in Ukraine, including by bringing in North Korean troops to join its war effort.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre added that the United States had warned Moscow against involving “another country in another part of the world.”
Ms Jean-Pierre said the US saw no reason to modify its nuclear doctrine in reaction to changes announced by Russia and condemned “irresponsible” rhetoric from Moscow.
Russia gave US thirty minutes warning
Russia informed the US that it was going to launch a new hypersonic missile 30 minutes before firing it at Ukraine, state media cited the Kremlin’s spokesman as saying.
“The Russian side warned the Americans about the launch of ‘Oreshnik’” through an automatic nuclear de-escalation hotline, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the TASS news agency.
US was notified by Russia before strike
The US was notified by Russia through nuclear risk reduction channels shortly before its strike with an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile on Ukraine’s city of Dnipro, a US official has said.
The official said: “The US was pre-notified briefly before the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels.”
They added that the US had also briefed Ukraine and close allies in recent days about possible use of the experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile.
War ‘going in the wrong direction’, says UN
Russia’s use of a new medium-range ballistic missile to strike Ukraine has been described as a “worrying development” by the UN.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said: “This is yet another concerning and worrying development. All of this (is) going in the wrong direction”.
Mr Dujarric called on all parties to de-escalate the conflict.
Russia ‘entitled’ to hit countries supplying weapons to Ukraine, says Putin
Vladimir Putin has declared that Moscow has the right to strike military targets of countries whose weapons are used by Ukraine to hit Russian territory.
The Russian president said in a televised address: “We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.
“In the event of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond just as decisively.”
He added: “We have always preferred to, and now are ready to resolve all disputed questions with peaceful means but we are also ready for any development of events.”
Putin claims Storm Shadow and ATACMs attacks have been thwarted
Vladimir Putin has claimed that Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian territory with Western-supplied weapons in recent days have failed.
“Our air-defence systems repelled these attacks,” Putin said in an address to the nation broadcast on state TV, adding: “The goals that the enemy obviously set were not achieved.”
Russia tested new missile in response to Western intervention, says Putin
Vladimir Putin has confirmed that Russia tested a new “hypersonic” medium-range ballistic missile in response to Ukraine’s use of American and British weapons.
In an surprise address to the nation on Thursday evening, the Russian president said: “In response to the use of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined strike on one of the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.
“In combat conditions, one of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested, among other things. In this case, with a ballistic missile in a nuclear-free hypersonic equipment.”
Ukraine had accused Russia of firing an RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time in the war before US officials cast doubts on the claim.
Putin added that engineers had named the new missile “Oreshnik”.
Amnesty International criticises Biden over landmines
The human rights organisation has described Joe Biden’s decision to send antipersonnel mines to Ukraine as “reckless” and urged the US president to reconsider.
Ben Linden, advocacy director for Europe and Central Asia for Amnesty International USA: “This is a reckless decision and a deeply disappointing setback for a President who once agreed that landmines put more civilians at increased risk of harm.
“It is devastating, and frankly shocking, that President Biden made such a consequential and dangerous decision just before his public service legacy is sealed for the history books.”
The US has provided Ukraine with anti-tank mines throughout the war, while Russia has used antipersonnel mines liberally on the front lines.
An official said the US mines differ from Russia’s as they are “non-persistent,” and become inert after days or weeks.
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