Putin ups the stakes as ‘nuclear-capable’ Russian missile hits Ukraine

Warheads from a suspected Russian intercontinental ballistic missile were seen raining down over Ukraine this morning in what is believed to be the first-ever use of such a weapon in war. Volodymyr Zelensky said the speed and altitude at which the missile flew suggested it was an ICBM and said experts were investigating the strike to try and identify the exact weapon used.

‘Expert examinations are underway. It is obvious that Putin is using Ukraine as a testing ground,’ Zelensky said in a video posted on social media. Ukrainian officials reported that the manufacturing plants of Yuzmash – a prominent state-owned aerospace and defence company responsible for making missiles and satellites among other advanced technology – were battered by multiple strikes. Security camera footage out of the central-eastern city of Dnipro showed several projectiles streaking in and detonating in a series of violent, fiery explosions.

The Ukrainian air force did not specify which ICBM had been fired, but it came mere hours after a Russian military analyst said Moscow’s forces could unleash its fearsome RS-26 ‘Frontier’ missile – a suggestion corroborated by sources quoted by Kyiv-based Ukrainskaya Pravda. Experts said the use of an ICBM to deliver conventional explosives was very costly, but that it served to illustrate how Moscow could dramatically escalate the conflict. 

Dr Ruth Deyermond, Senior Lecturer in Post-Soviet Security at King’s College London , told MailOnline: ‘This strike has no obvious military value – they could achieve the same objectives without sacrificing an ICBM. It looks very much as if it’s signalling to the West what Russia could do if it chose to – launch a nuclear-armed missile. But it’s actually a sign of weakness,’ she added. ‘The Russian government knows what would happen to it if they did attempt to use any kind of nuclear weapon, so they have to resort to bluffing.’

Footage of the alleged ICBM strike emerged as Russia also threatened to strike US air bases in Poland with ‘advanced weapons’. Moscow said the opening of a new US ballistic missile defence base in Redzikowo near the Baltic coast will ‘increase the overall level of nuclear danger’, adding it could be considered a future target. ‘(The base) has been added to the list of priority targets for potential destruction which, if necessary, can be executed with a wide range of advanced weapons,’ Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova concluded. Zakharova’s statement came minutes after Ukraine’s air force first reported that an ICBM had been fired from a base in Russia ‘s southern Astrakhan region on the Caspian Sea early this morning.

Russian authorities have thus far refused to comment on the launch. But in a bizarre twist, Zakharova’s press conference was interrupted by a phone call in which the speaker appeared to tell the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman about the ICBM strike before instructing her not to comment on it. A man’s voice was faintly heard saying: ‘Masha, ballistic missile strikes on Yuzhmash. The Westerners are talking about it now. Don’t comment at all.’ The alleged ICBM strike comes after Ukraine used US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles to demolish targets inside Russia following approval by Sir Keir Starmer this week – something Moscow had warned for months would be seen as a major escalation.

British Defence Secretary John Healey (pictured) refused to be drawn into confirming reports that Kyiv deployed the British long-range missiles, but said Ukraine faces a ‘serious moment’ in its defence against the Russian invasion. The Prime Minister has meanwhile insisted UK support for Ukraine is ‘always for self-defence’ and compliant with international law, as he accused Putin of wanting ‘destruction not peace’. Ukraine has not suffered an ICBM strike since the war began in February 2022, with Russia’s military deploying smaller, slower Iskander missiles and a handful of hypersonic Kinzhal projectiles alongside hundreds upon hundreds of attack drones. Ukrainska Pravda cited anonymous sources saying the ICBM that allegedly struck Dnipro today was indeed an RS-26 ‘Frontier’, a solid-fuelled, nuclear-capable rocket that was first successfully tested in 2012.

The Frontier missile weighs roughly 36 tonnes with a range of up to 3,600 miles. It flies at such a speed that Ukraine’s rudimentary air defence systems would be powerless to intercept its warheads. ‘If true this will be totally unprecedented and the first actual military use of ICBM. Not that it makes a lot of sense given their price and precision,’ Andrey Baklitskiy of the UN Institute for Disarmament Research posted on X. The Russian attack targeted enterprises and critical infrastructure in Dnipro as well as other sites across the country, Ukraine’s air force said, at a time of escalating moves in the 33-month-old war. The Kremlin deployed Tu-95MS strategic bombers to launch cruise missiles and MiG-31K fighters to fire hypersonic Kinzhal rockets in a calculated bid to plunge Ukraine into darkness as a bitter winter approaches. In Dnipro, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said the missile attack caused damage to an industrial enterprise and set off fires. No casualty figures were available.

Some Russian missiles reportedly struck the towns of Kremenchuk and Myrhorod, while areas in Kyiv, Odesa and Sumy regions suffered blackouts as the electrical grid gave out. The mass bombardment of Ukraine this morning prompted NATO to scramble F-16 warplanes over neighbouring Poland as ground-based air defence and radar systems were put on the ‘highest state of readiness’ amid the attack. Ukraine’s air force reported air defences shot down six Kh-101 cruise missiles. Responding to Zakharova’s statements on the opening of the Redzikowo air defence base, a Polish foreign ministry spokesman pointed out there were no nuclear missiles at the facility and that it is purely defensive in nature. ‘Such threats will certainly serve as an argument to strengthen Poland’s and NATO’s air defences, and should also be considered by the United States,’ added the spokesman, Pawel Wronski.

The facility, opened on November 13, forms part of a broader NATO missile shield called ‘Aegis Ashore’ designed to intercept short- and intermediate-range ballistic weapons. Aegis Ashore constitutes a network of bases that use radar tracking systems from the US Navy’s Aegis warships to identify and shoot down oncoming missiles with American SM-3 rockets. There are currently two sites online, one in Romania and one in Poland, reinforced by an early warning system based in Turkey and US Navy ships in Spain. The wide-ranging attacks by Russia this morning come on Ukraine’s annual Day of Dignity and Freedom, honouring the beginning of its struggle for independence and liberty.

President Zelensky said in an address today: ‘We remember the real price of freedom for Ukraine. And we do not forget all our people of different times who fought for Ukraine and became a model of dignity for the world. Thanks to people, thanks to the desire of our people to preserve freedom and independence for Ukraine, our state will always be on the political map of the world. Always free and sovereign.’ This morning’s bombardment of Ukraine comes less than 24 hours after Kyiv launched UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets in Kursk. Fragments of the missiles that struck a military facility in the Russian town of Marino were recovered by military bloggers on Wednesday afternoon, with unverified pictures shared widely on social media. The Mail understands the attacks, which followed Ukraine firing US-supplied ATACMS missiles on Tuesday, were personally approved by Sir Keir Starmer.

Russia this morning officially acknowledged the strikes, saying its air defences shot down two of the projectiles along with six HIMARS rockets and 67 drones. Asked to confirm reports Storm Shadow had been used by Ukraine, Defence Secretary John Healey said: ‘I won’t be drawn on the operational details of the conflict. ‘It risks both operational security and in the end the only one that benefits from such a public debate is President Putin.’ According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, a Moscow-based newspaper, a Russian military expert had openly talked about retaliation for the Storm Shadow strike with an ICBM. Timur Syrlanov, a Russian military analyst, said Ukraine should be ‘trembling’ over the use of the RS-26 ‘Frontier’ rocket. ‘In this situation, we will not use nuclear weapons, but the neo-Nazis and their Western allies, I think, will appreciate in the coming days the blow that will be dealt to Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and, possibly, to targets in Kyiv itself,’ he said. ‘Let them tremble, be afraid, and wait for landings anywhere. Moreover, the enemy understands perfectly well that our weapons can reach any targets throughout Ukraine.’

Putin on Tuesday signed off changes to the country’s laws on nuclear weapons to make it easier for them to be deployed against Ukraine. And his foreign minister Sergei Lavrov chillingly warned that the strikes by Ukraine were a clear signal that Kyiv ‘wanted to escalate’ and that Russia would ‘react accordingly’. The terrifying sabre rattling was confirmed by the Russian President’s close ally Dmitry Medvedev. Posting on X, the Deputy Chair of Russia’s security council said it meant ‘World War III’. It came after Kyiv launched six ‘ATACMS’ rockets from an undisclosed location over the border into Russian territory on Tuesday. The strikes triggered a fiery explosion at a depot in Karachev, believed to be storing ammunition supplied by North Korea, around 75miles from the Ukrainian border. As tensions escalate in the Russia-Ukraine war, the UK’s Defence Secretary announced the British military would be hit by £500 million worth of cuts.

John Healey said the Labour Government would scrap six major programmes across the Armed Forces, including the Army’s main fleet of drones and two amphibious assault ships – HMS Albion and HMS Bulwark. The plans have been criticised by former defence secretary Ben Wallace who argued they would send a message of weakness to the UK’s adversaries. Writing in The Telegraph, he said: ‘For our enemies to be deterred they must know we intend to have no holes in our capabilities, or at least we will soon be upgrading them. To tell the world we are scaling back our capabilities when our enemies are doing the opposite is pure folly. No one is fooled by the tired and misleading excuse by Labour that ”we have to wait for a defence review” – yet another one.’

In videos recorded in the village of Marino in Russia’s Kursk region yesterday, multiple explosions were heard preceded by high-pitched whistling apparently from incoming missiles. The footage also showed smoke rising from buildings. Unconfirmed reports suggested Ukraine had targeted an underground command and control facility 50 miles inside Russia with Storm Shadow missiles. The navigational data and satellite intelligence which facilitated the air strikes was understood to have been provided by the US. The strikes, which have not been confirmed by the British Government, follow the use of UK Storm Shadows to eliminate Russian military infrastructure in Crimea.

The significant difference is that while the UK regards occupied Crimea as Ukrainian sovereign territory, Kursk is recognised by Britain as belonging to Russia. It is understood that the last time British weapons were used on Russian sovereign territory was during clashes between an Allied force and the Bolsheviks in the Arctic Archangel region in 1918-19. Before that it was during the Crimean War in the 1850s. Speaking in the Commons, Mr Healey declined to confirm the reports or divulge any operational details. He told MPs: ‘We have seen over recent weeks a significant change in the [Russian] action and the rhetoric on Ukraine. We as a nation and a Government are doubling down on our support for Ukraine and intend to do more .’

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