President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would keep testing the hypersonic Oreshnik missile it fired at Ukraine.
- The new intermediate-range ballistic missile called Oreshnik used by Russia in a strike on Ukraine is a nuclear-capable weapon that had not been previously mentioned in public.
- Ukraine said that Russia fired an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) at Ukraine a day after President Vladimir Putin changed Moscow’s nuclear doctrine.
- Moscow’s strong response comes days after the US President and and UK Prime Minister allowed Ukraine to use Western long-range cruise and ballistic missiles to target deep within Russian territory.
- Within hours of those approvals from Washington and London, Kyiv fired a US-made ATACMS missile and a UK-made ‘Storm Shadow’ missile targeting Russian territories.
- The Ukrainian Air Force released a statement today in which it said that Russian forces had launched various types of missiles at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
- Intermediate missiles have a range of 3,000-5,500 km (1,860-3,415 miles), which would enable them to strike anywhere in Europe or the western United States from Russia.
- The novel feature of the Oreshnik missile was that it carried multiple warheads capable of simultaneously striking different targets – something usually associated with longer-range intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.
- The Oreshnik was fired with conventional, not nuclear, warheads.
