Putin says Russia attacked Ukraine with a new missile that he claims the West cannot stop

In a televised address to the country, the Russian president warned that US air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at ten times the speed of sound and which he called Oreshnik – Russian for hazelnut.

He also said it could be used to attack any Ukrainian ally whose missiles are being used to attack Russia.

“We believe we have the right to use our weapons against the military facilities of countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities,” Putin said in his first comments since US President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the green light this month to use the US ATACMS missile attack to limited targets within Russia.

Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed that the Russian missile is a new, experimental type of medium-range missile based on the RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

“This was a new type of lethal capability that was being deployed on the battlefield, so that was certainly a concern,” Singh said, noting that the missile could carry either conventional or nuclear warheads.

The US was notified before the launch through the nuclear risk reduction channel, she said.

The attack on the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine came in response to Kiev’s use of longer-range US and British missiles in Tuesday and Wednesday’s attacks on southern Russia, Putin said.

Those strikes caused a fire at an ammunition depot in Russia’s Bryansk region and killed and wounded some members of the security services in the Kursk region, he said.

“In the event of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and with the same measure,” the Russian president said, adding that Western leaders planning to use their forces against Moscow should “seriously think about it.”

“The modern air defense systems that exist in the world and the anti-missile defenses created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles,” he said.

Putin said that the Oresnik fired during the night hit a well-known missile factory in Dnieper. He also said Russia would issue advance warnings if it launched new Oreshnik strikes against Ukraine to allow civilians to evacuate to safety – something Moscow had not done before previous airstrikes.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov initially said Russia had not warned the US of the imminent launch of a new missile, noting that it was not required to do so. But he later changed his stance and said Moscow had issued a warning 30 minutes before the launch.

Putin’s announcement came hours after Ukraine claimed Russia had used an intercontinental ballistic missile in an attack on the Dnieper, which wounded two people and damaged an industrial plant and a rehabilitation center for the disabled, according to local officials. But U.S. officials said an initial U.S. assessment indicated the attack was carried out by an intermediate-range ballistic missile.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that the use of missiles was “a clear and serious escalation of the scale and brutality of this war, a cynical violation of the UN Charter.”

He also said there was no “strong global reaction” to the use of the missile, which he said could threaten other countries.

“Putin is very sensitive to this. He is testing you, dear partners,” Zelenskyy wrote.

“If there is no strong response to Russia’s actions, it means that they see that such actions are possible.”

The attack came during a week of escalating tensions as the US eased restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range US-made missiles inside Russia and Putin lowered the threshold for launching nuclear weapons.

The Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement that the attack on the Dnieper was launched from the Russian region of Astrakhan, on the Caspian Lake.

“Today, our crazy neighbor once again showed what he really is,” Zelensky said a few hours before Putin’s address. – And how afraid he is.

Russia sent a message by attacking Ukraine with intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can drop multiple warheads at extremely high speeds, even if they are less accurate than cruise or short-range ballistic missiles, said Matthew Savill, director of military science at the Royal United Services Institute, think tank tank based in London.

“Why might you use it?” Savill said.

“Signaling – signaling to the Ukrainians. We have things that piss you off. But we’re actually signaling to the West, ‘We’re happy to enter the intermediate-range ballistic missile competition. PS: They might have nuclear warheads. Do you really want to take that risk?'”

Military experts say modern ICBMs and IRBMs are extremely difficult to intercept, although Ukraine has previously claimed to have stopped some other weapons described by Russia as “unstoppable”, including the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic missile.

David Albright, of the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank, said he was “skeptical” of Putin’s claims, adding that Russian technology sometimes “fails”.

He suggested that Putin was “taunting the West to try to bring it down … as a braggart mocks his enemy.”

Earlier this week, the Biden administration authorized Ukraine to use longer-range US-supplied missiles to strike deeper inside Russia — a move that drew an angry response from Moscow.

A few days later, Ukraine fired several missiles at Russia, according to the Kremlin. That same day, Putin signed a new doctrine that allows for a potential nuclear response to even a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that has the backing of a nuclear power.

The doctrine is broadly formulated to avoid a firm commitment to use nuclear weapons. In response, Western countries, including the US, said Russia had used irresponsible nuclear rhetoric and behavior during the war to intimidate Ukraine and other nations.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that Russia’s official lowering of the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons did not prompt any changes in US doctrine.

She dismissed concerns that the decision to allow Ukraine to use Western missiles for attacks deeper inside Russia could escalate the war.

“They are the ones who are escalating this,” she said of the Kremlin – in part because of the flood of North Korean troops sent to the region.

More than 1,000 days into the war, Russia has the upper hand, with its larger army advancing into Donetsk, and Ukrainian civilians suffering relentless drone and missile attacks.

Analysts and observers say the loosening of restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western missiles is unlikely to change the course of the war, but it puts the Russian military in a more vulnerable position and could complicate logistics crucial to warfare.

Putin also warned that the move would mean Russia and NATO are at war.

“It’s an important move and it goes against, undermines the narrative that Putin has been trying to establish that it’s OK for Russia to rain down Iranian drones and North Korean missiles on Ukraine, but that it’s a reckless escalation for Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons against legitimate targets in Russia ” said Peter Ricketts, a former British national security adviser who now sits in the House of Lords.