Anastasiia Malenko, Tom Balmforth and Max Hunder
Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday in response to the U.S. and UK's allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons, in a further escalation of the 33-month-old war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a televised address, said Moscow struck a Ukrainian military facility with a new medium-range, hypersonic ballistic missile known as "Oreshnik" (the hazel) and warned that more could follow. He said civilians would be warned ahead of further strikes with such weapons.
After approval from the administration of President Joe Biden, Ukraine struck Russia with six U.S.-made ATACMS on Nov. 19 and with British Storm Shadow missiles and U.S.-made HIMARS on Nov. 21, Putin said.
"From that moment, a regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the West has acquired elements of a global character," Putin said in an address to the nation carried by state television after 8 p.m. in Moscow (1700 GMT).
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said use of the new missile amounted to "a clear and severe escalation" in the war and called for strong worldwide condemnation.
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