Russia-Ukraine war latest: President Putin launches new ballistic missile, threat of world war becomes reality, Poland warns

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has warned that Russia’s use of a new experimental hypersonic missile is a serious escalation of the conflict.

President Zelenskiy said Thursday’s attack on central Ukraine’s Dnipro with an intermediate-range ballistic warhead was “further proof that Russia is not interested in peace.”

Ukraine’s air defense force said the missile, which has a range of more than 3,400 miles and can carry a nuclear warhead, was fired from Russia’s Astrakhan region on the Caspian Sea.

“Dear partners, he is testing you. He must be stopped. The lack of a harsh response to Russia’s actions sends a message that such actions are acceptable. This is what President Putin is doing,” Zelenskyy said.

“Pressure is necessary. Russia must be forced into true peace, but that can only be achieved by force,” he added.

U.S. officials said that while the intermediate-range missile launch was less of a threat, the incident could still cause alarm, and that the Russian government briefly notified the U.S. government before the launch.

The Kremlin said Russia had no technical obligation to warn the United States about the attack because the missiles used were intermediate-range rather than intercontinental, but Russia notified the United States 30 minutes before the launch anyway. He added that he did.

Russian military expert Anatoly Matvichuk said the missile could carry six to eight conventional or nuclear warheads and was probably already in service.

Putin said the missile could not be intercepted because it traveled at 10 times the speed of sound (Mach 10), and Russian intelligence sources said it had a range of 31,000 miles.

It would also likely have been possible to have multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, meaning separate warheads could attack different targets.

The Ukrainian Air Force initially said the missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the type that Russia could use to attack the United States.

However, the US military later announced that the weapon was an intermediate-range missile based on the design of Russia’s long-range intercontinental ballistic missile, the RS-26.

The Pentagon said the warhead was fired with a conventional warhead, but Russia could modify it if it wanted, and that Russia only has a small number of warheads.

“It may be modified to reliably carry various types of conventional and nuclear warheads,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed on Friday that all of the missile’s warheads hit their targets, hailing the first successful combat use of a medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile carrying a conventional warhead.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense said it had received information that Russia was being forced to use advanced fighter jets for more standard missions.

The Defense Ministry said the Russian air force had a “technical and numerical superiority” and had been unable to establish air superiority over Ukraine despite the war lasting more than 1,000 days.

“Russia relies on using tactical-level aircraft, such as the SU-34 aircraft, as airborne artillery,” he added, without explaining why.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk border region announced on Friday that 46 Russian civilian residents of Kursk held by Ukraine were returned to Russia as a result of negotiations with Kiev.

Alexei Smirnov said civilians, including 12 children, were transferred to Ukraine by Ukrainian forces after Kiev carried out a cross-border incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region in August.

Ukraine continues to control parts of the region despite Russia’s efforts to remove Kiev forces

The Russian missile that struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk on Thursday reached a top speed of more than 13,000 km/h (8,000 mph) and took about 15 minutes to reach its target from launch, Ukraine said. announced Friday in the first public evaluation of the new missile. weapon.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government had attacked Ukrainian military facilities with a new medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as Oreshnik, as a warning to the West against Ukraine’s support for the war.

The attack comes as the civil war approaches its third year and Ukraine fires long-range missiles supplied by its Western allies at targets inside Russia.

“The flight time of this Russian missile from the time it was launched in the Astrakhan region until it landed in the city of Dnipro was 15 minutes,” the Military Intelligence Directorate (HUR) said in a statement.