Following an overnight missile and drone attack by Russia targeting Ukraine’s key energy infrastructure, Russian President Vladimir Putin now says that government buildings in Kyiv could be targeted next using a new hypersonic missile that could also potentially reach the U.S.
Russian attacks have not so far struck ‘decision-making centers’ in the Ukrainian capital as Kyiv is heavily protected by air defenses. But Putin says Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted.
Russia fired the Oreshnik at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21, striking a weapons production plant. This was in retaliation against Ukrainian strikes on a Russian military facility in Bryansk two days earlier with U.S. made long-range missiles called ATACMS, after President Biden had given Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy permission to do so.
Russia says Ukraine fired more ATACMS at its Kursk region on Nov. 23 and Nov. 25.
‘Of course, we will respond to the ongoing strikes on Russian territory with long-range Western-made missiles, as has already been said, including by possibly continuing to test the Oreshnik in combat conditions, as was done on November 21,’ Putin told a meeting of a security alliance of ex-Soviet countries in Kazakhstan.
‘At present, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory. These could be military facilities, defense and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centers in Kyiv,’ he said.
The instrumentations of the Oreshnik missile – its sensors, electronics, data acquisition capabilities – are those of the Rubezh, a Russian solid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM). With its flight capability of between 310 miles and 3,100 miles – just 310 miles below the standard low limit of an ICBM – the Oreshnik can target most of Europe and the West Coast of the United States. After a launch, such a missile could probably hit Britain in 20 minutes and Poland in 12 minutes.
The Oreshnik can be outfitted with a non-nuclear or nuclear warhead. And it is nearly impossible to intercept by existing missile defense systems because it is designed to fly at hypersonic speeds, reaching Mach 11.
Putin said Russia’s production of advanced missile systems exceeds that of the NATO military alliance by 10 times, and that Moscow planned to ramp up production further.
His plans to increase production and ongoing strikes mean the conflict – which has already passed 1,000 days – shows no signs of abating.
Russia unleashed a massive aerial drone and missile attack on Ukraine on Thursday targeting the country’s key energy infrastructure, leaving more than a million households without power in the west, south and center of the country, Ukrainian officials said.
The attack consisted of firing nearly 200 missiles and drones with explosions being reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, Lutsk and many other cities in central and western Ukraine.
The operation was Russia’s second major aerial attack on Ukraine’s power grid in less than two weeks, with President Vladimir Putin saying on Thursday that the attack was a response to Kyiv’s attacks on Russian regions using longer-range American missiles.
The attack has raised fears in Ukraine that Russia is looking to cripple its energy infrastructure before the winter cold starts to bite and dampen Ukrainian spirits about the outcome of the war.
Zelenskyy said that the attack was a ‘vile escalation’ and that Kalibr cruise missiles with cluster munitions were used to deliberately target civilian infrastructure.
‘The use of these cluster elements significantly complicates the work of our rescuers and power engineers in mitigating the damage, marking yet another vile escalation in Russia’s terrorist tactics,’ Zelenskyy wrote on X.
He urged Western countries to deliver on promised air defense weaponry. Ukrainian officials in the past have grumbled that military aid is slow to arrive.
The attack came just hours after President-elect Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg for a potential new post focused on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump has created the position of special envoy for the Ukraine conflict,
Three sources familiar told Reuters that Kellogg presented Trump with a plan to end the conflict, and in April co-authored a research document that presented the idea of using weapons supplied to Ukraine as leverage for armistice negotiations with Russia.
Rebekah Koffler, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.