Updated November 21, 2024 at 16:33 PM ET
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia fired an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine overnight, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a TV speech Thursday, warning that the Kremlin could use it against military installations of countries that have allowed Ukraine to use their missiles to strike inside Russia.
Putin said the new missile, called "Oreshnik," Russian for "hazel," used a nonnuclear warhead.
Ukraine's air force said a ballistic missile hit the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, saying it was launched from the Astrakhan region in southeastern Russia, more than 770 miles away. Ukrainian officials said it and other rockets damaged an industrial facility, a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities and residential buildings. Three people were injured, according to regional authorities.
"This is an obvious and serious increase in the scale and brutality of this war," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on his Telegram messaging app.
The attack came during a week of intense fighting in the nearly three years of war since Russia invaded Ukraine, and it followed U.S. authorization earlier this week for Ukraine to use its sophisticated weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Putin said Ukraine had carried out attacks in Russia this week using long-range U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and British-French Storm Shadow missiles. He said Ukraine could not have carried out these attacks without NATO involvement.
"Our test use of Oreshnik in real conflict conditions is a response to the aggressive actions by NATO countries towards Russia," Putin said.
He also warned: "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."
Zelenskyy called the strike Russia's "second step towards escalation" this year, adding that the first step was deploying thousands of North Korean troops in the war against Ukraine.
Zelenskyy initially suggested Thursday's attack in Dnipro had the characteristics of an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.
But a U.S. government assessment later said Russia launched an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile and that Ukraine has previously withstood larger Russian warheads than this. "Russia may be seeking to use this capability to try to intimidate Ukraine and its supporters, or generate attention in the information space, but it will not be a game changer in this conflict," it said.
U.S. Defense Department press secretary Sabrina Singh said, "The United States was pre-notified briefly before the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels."
Earlier this week, a U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told NPR that Ukraine fired seven U.S.-made ATACMS into Russia, striking a weapons depot near the town of Karachev, in Russia's Bryansk region, about 70 miles from Ukraine. The official said Russia shot down two of the missiles.
Putin, during his TV address Thursday, claimed the ATACMS strikes "failed," but said a Ukrainian attack using Storm Shadow missiles in Russia's Kursk region killed or injured some security and service personnel.
Ukrainian energy worker Serhii Nikolaienko, 24, said he wishes Ukraine's partners had allowed Ukrainian troops to use long-range weapons far earlier in the war.
"If we had kicked the war in the teeth two years or two and a half years ago, I think there would have not have been such destruction" in Ukraine, he told NPR.
Reikhan Dzhumaieva, a 22-year-old translator in Kyiv, agreed.
"It's a great thing to target Russians and Russian troops before they enter the territory of Ukraine," she said.
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