Nato says new Russian missile won’t deter support for Ukraine – live updates | Russia

The UK is now “directly involved” in the Ukraine war after its Storm Shadow missiles were used to strike targets inside Russia, the Russian ambassador to the UK, Andrei Kelin, said earlier on Thursday.

Kelin, in an interview with Sky News, said Britain’s decision to allow Ukraine to use its missiles on Russian targets had dragged the UK into the conflict. He said:

Absolutely, Britain and UK is now directly involved in this war, because this firing cannot happen without Nato staff, British staff as well.

He added:

The US administration, support by France and the UK, has made a deliberate decision to make these strikes, which seriously escalates the situation, and it can bring a collision between the nuclear powers.

Downing Street, responding to Kelin’s comments, said the UK government would not be “deterred or distracted by commentary from Vladimir Putin or the Russian ambassador”.

Nato says new Russian missile will not change course of Ukraine war

Bridget Brink, the US ambassador to Ukraine, has said that the Russian attack on Dnipro shows Kyiv needs continued support until the end of the war.

Russia’s attack on Dnipro is a sign that we must support Ukraine until it wins this war against Russia’s aggression, which is a threat to Ukraine, Europe, and the world.

Russia’s use of new missile a ‘worrying development’, says UN chief’s spokesperson

Here’s a clip from Vladimir Putin’s address on Thursday confirming that Russia fired an experimental ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro earlier that morning.

The Russian president appeared to directly threaten the US and UK, who earlier this week allowed Ukraine to fire western-made Atacms and Storm Shadow missiles into Russia.

The new ballistic missile was called Oreshnik [the hazel], Putin said, and its deployment “was a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate and short-range missiles”. He said Russia would “respond decisively and symmetrically” in the event of an escalation.

The “experimental” Russian ballistic missile fired at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro this morning carried multiple warheads, CNN is reporting, citing sources.

According to the outlet, the weapon is known as a “multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicle (Mirv)” which carries a series of warheads that can each target a specific location, allowing one ballistic missile to launch a larger attack.

Thursday’s missile attack was not armed with nuclear warheads, but it used a weapon designed for nuclear delivery to instead launch conventional weapons, CNN writes.

Tom Karako, the director of the missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told the outlet that it was likely the first time a Mirv has been used in combat.

The use of this type of missile armed with conventional warheads is an escalation of Russia’s nuclear sabre-rattling, Karako said, which includes Vladimir Putin’s recent updating of its nuclear doctrine.

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Prior to Vladimir Putin’s televised address confirming the use of an experimental ballistic missile, the UK accused the Russian president of dramatically escalating the war in Ukraine.

A spokesperson for Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, said Russia’s use of a ballistic missile is “another example of reckless behaviour” by Moscow. The spokesperson added:

This is obviously deeply concerning. It is another example of reckless behaviour from Russia, which only serves to strengthen our resolve in terms of standing by Ukraine for as long as it takes.

Here are some images from Ukraine’s emergency services showing the aftermath of a Russian missile strike on the city of Dnipro early on Thursday.

Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at Oslo University who specialises in missile technology and nuclear strategy, said the significance of the Oreshnik missile strike was that it appeared to carry a type of payload that “is exclusively associated with nuclear-capable missiles”.

A US official told the Guardian that Russia may have used the weapon as an attempt to “intimidate Ukraine and its supporters” or attract public attention, but that the weapon would not be a “gamechanger” in the conflict.

“Russia likely possesses only a handful of these experimental missiles,” the official said.

Ukraine used US Atacms missiles to target what it said was a weapons depot in Russia’s south-western Bryansk region on Monday, and fired a salvo of Storm Shadow missiles on Wednesday at a command post in Kursk, where Kyiv’s forces hold a small bridgehead of territory inside Russia.

Ukraine had previously used both weapons to strike targets inside its internationally recognised borders, but had been lobbying the US and UK for months to allow it to strike airfields, bases and depots deeper inside Russia.

Both sides are stepping up their military efforts in the near three-year-long war ahead of the inauguration of Donald Trump on 20 January. The Republican president-elect has said he wants to end the war, though it is unclear how he proposes to do so, and each side is hoping to improve its battlefield position before he takes office.

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