War escalates further

Putin: Moscow fires new medium-range missile

Russian head of state Vladimir Putin during a televised address on Thursday.(Bild: AP/Pavel Bednyakov)

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin is now threatening not only Ukraine but also its Western supporters with missile attacks. However, some military observers fear that Moscow is preparing for a nuclear strike.

"We believe we have the right to use our weapons against military objects in countries that allow their weapons to be used against objects in our country," the 72-year-old fumed in a video address on Thursday evening. He proudly announced that the Russian military had fired one of the latest medium-range ballistic missiles called "Oreshnik" - in response to the recent Ukrainian long-range attacks with Western weapons.

Dress rehearsal for nuclear strike?
"The tests were successful. The target was reached," the Russians' televisions boomed. The target was a military-industrial facility in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Some military observers spoke in this context of a warning shot, but also of a possible dress rehearsal for a real nuclear strike.

The Ukrainian air force reported that the missile had been fired at the city of Dnipro from the Russian region of Astrakhan. The two cities are around 700 kilometers apart. According to local authorities in Dnipro, two people were injured in the attack. An industrial company in the city was also damaged. Two fires also broke out in the city. 

What can "Oreshnik" do?
Meanwhile, Putin confirmed an attack with a new medium-range missile and threatened further missile attacks on Ukraine. The "Oreshnik" system operates at hypersonic speed and cannot be intercepted, the Kremlin chief explained. On Thursday morning, six warheads from a Russian missile were suspected to have hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. According to Putin, they were not nuclear warheads.

The suspected attack with "Oreshnik":

The Ukrainian armed forces had attacked targets in the Russian oblast of Bryansk with six ATACMS missiles on Tuesday and the oblast of Kursk with Storm Shadow missiles on Thursday, the Russian president elaborated. People had been killed in Kursk and there were also casualties. 

The situation is coming to a head
For the Kremlin leader, the conflict has now reached a whole new level with the latest attacks. His threat to Kiev's Western partners: Without specialists from the countries where these long-range weapons are manufactured, their use would be impossible.

He spoke of a reaction to the fact that the USA and other Western countries had allowed Ukraine to use long-range weapons on Russian territory: "We have repeatedly emphasized that the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has taken on elements of a global character." At the same time, he described the new system as Moscow's response to the USA wanting to deploy medium-range missiles in Europe and the Pacific.