The Russian military has launched a state-of-the-art intermediate-range ballistic missile against a Ukrainian target, President Vladimir Putin said in a public address on Thursday.
As part of what the president called a “combat test,” the hypersonic missile, dubbed ‘Oreshnik’ (‘Hazel’), successfully struck a military industrial facility in the Ukrainian city of Dnepropetrovsk (known as Dnipro in Ukraine), Putin added.
The strike was a response to Ukrainian attacks on military facilities located on internationally recognized Russian territory, the president stated. Kiev’s forces launched the strikes on Tuesday and Thursday, using US-made ATACMS and HIMARS systems as well as British-made Storm Shadow missiles, he said.
The president also vowed to publicly announce any future strikes against the Ukrainian targets involving the ‘Oreshnik’ system “for humanitarian reasons” to let civilians leave a potentially dangerous zone. The announcements would not affect the effectiveness of the strikes, he added. A ballistic missile travelling at between 2.5 and 3 kilometers per second, or 10 times faster than the speed of sound, cannot be countered with any existing air defense systems, Putin said.
Earlier, international media reported that Kiev had received approval from Washington and London for the use of Western-made long-range systems for strikes deep into Russia.
One of the attacks resulted in several casualties at a Russian command center in the Kursk Region, but failed to disrupt its operations, the president said, adding that such developments have drastically changed the nature of the Ukraine conflict, making it a more “global” one.
According to Putin, the response involved a “hypersonic ballistic missile strike with a non-nuclear payload.” The missile struck “one of the biggest industrial complexes, which has been famous even since Soviet times and still produces missiles and other weapons.” The president was apparently referring to Yuzhmash – Ukraine’s state-owned aerospace manufacturer, which it inherited from the Soviet Union.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed on Thursday that the city of Dnepropetrovsk was targeted in a major Russian missile strike, involving various types of weapons. The Ukrainian military stated that Moscow had used “an intercontinental ballistic missile” as part of the strike – a claim that was disputed even by Washington.
According to Ukraine’s Air Force, the strike also involved a hypersonic Russian Kinzhal missile and seven Kh-101 cruise missiles. Ukrainian air defense forces claim to have shot down six of the cruise missiles. The Ukrainian military also said they did not possess any information on casualties or damage resulting from the strike at the time the statement was released.
The “combat test” came in response to the “aggressive actions of the NATO member states against Russia,” Putin said in his speech. Moscow has voluntarily made a unilateral commitment not to deploy intermediate range missiles anywhere for as long as similar US weapons are not deployed to any region of the world either, the president stated.
The very development of such systems was a response to Washington’s plans to produce and deploy similar systems to Europe and the Asia-Pacific, Putin said, pointing to Washington’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019.
“The issue of the further deployment of short and medium-range missiles will be decided in response to the actions of the US and its satellites,” the Russian president said.
Moscow will also continue the “combat tests” of its newest missile system, Putin warned, adding that Russia’s criteria for choosing targets for such tests will be determined by a security threat assessment. Moscow believes it has a right to target the military facilities of those nations that allow its weapons to be used against Russia, the president stated.
“In case of an escalation, … we will deliver a decisive mirror-like response,” he said.
Russia is still ready to “resolve all the differences in a peaceful way,” the president said, adding that Moscow is still “also ready for any developments” and one should not doubt that “there will always be a response.”