Russia fired new ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says

President Vladimir Putin says Russian forces have fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine, in response to Kyiv’s use this week of US and UK-made missiles in attacks on targets in Russia, reports aljazeera.com.

Ukraine on Thursday accused Russia of firing a new kind of missile at the city of Dnipro amid soaring tensions in the more-than-two-year war.

It said that Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) along with a barrage of other missiles at the city in central Ukraine. Local authorities said the attack hit an infrastructure facility and injured two civilians.

In a televised address, President Vladimir Putin said Russia had tested a hypersonic intermediate-range missile in a strike on Ukraine in response to the aggressive actions of NATO countries.

“We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities,” Putin said in his first comments since US President Joe Biden gave Ukraine the green light this month to use US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) missiles to strike at some targets inside Russia.

A United States official was cited by the Reuters news agency as saying that Russia did not fire an ICBM at Ukraine, but instead launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile, according to an assessment based on its initial analysis.