President Vladimir Putin threatened to attack “decision-making centers” in Kiev on Thursday with Russia’s new hypersonic missile, hours after Moscow destroyed Ukraine’s energy grid in an attack that killed a million people. Were deprived of electricity.
Kiev said Russia fired more than 90 missiles and about 100 drones during the barrage, which the Kremlin chief called a “response” to Ukrainian attacks on its territory with Western missiles.
The nearly three-year-old war has seen an uptick in recent days, with both sides deploying new weapons to gain the upper hand before US President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
“We do not rule out the use of the Oreshnik against military, military-industrial or decision-making centers, including Kiev,” Putin told a news conference in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, referring to the hypersonic missile.
Kiev’s Government District – an area of the capital where many government buildings are located – remains under tight security, but fears over it have increased over the past week.
Russia last week tested its new Oration ballistic missile over Ukraine, and Putin claimed on Thursday that firing multiple warheads at once would have the force equivalent to a nuclear strike, or “meteoroid” hit.
He had earlier said that the overnight bombings were “a response to the ongoing attacks on our territory by (American) ATACMS missiles.”
“As I have said repeatedly, there will always be a response from our side.”
Putin also claimed that Russia knew how many long-range weapons were supplied to Kiev and where they were located.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Putin’s threat to attack Kiev was “proof of weakness” and said the West would not be bothered by his words.
disgusting growth
The latest attacks came as Ukrainians were bracing for a tough winter, with much of its energy infrastructure already damaged by nearly three years of war, and Russian forces advancing into eastern Ukraine.
Tensions have risen over the past few weeks as both sides seek to gain ground on the battlefield ahead of Trump’s inauguration in January.
Putin suggested he has expectations from Trump’s second term, calling the Republican an “intelligent person” on Thursday who was able to find “solutions,” without specifying what he was referring to.
The Russian leader spoke hours after an overnight outage that cut power to more than half a million customers in Ukraine’s western Lviv region.
Officials said 280,000 people in the western Rivne region and 215,000 people in the northwestern Volyn region also lost power.
Ukraine’s emergency services said Russia’s overnight attacks caused damage in 14 regions across the country, with the country’s western region worst hit.
Zelensky said that Russia had also fired “cluster munitions” during the attack, calling it a “very disgusting extension of Russian terrorist tactics”.
AFP journalists in the capital Kiev heard explosions in the capital overnight as air defense systems targeted Russian drones and missiles, as locals crowded into the underground metro system for cover.
The Energy Ministry said it was the 11th major Russian attack on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure this year.
Rosemary DiCarlo, a senior U.N. official, warned this month that Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure could make this winter “the harshest since the beginning of the war.”
Putin claimed new missile
Since Moscow shocked the West and Kiev last week by testing its new ballistic missile, the Oreshnik, over the city of Dnipro, Russian officials have touted the weapon’s power.
In Astana, Putin said the Oreshnik could turn anything “into dust” and hit it at a temperature equivalent to “the surface of the Sun.”
He said that Russia was forced to (test the weapon) in a war situation after Kiev’s first attack on Russian territory using ATACMS.
Putin said Thursday that Orasonic could travel “about three kilometers per second” and that its elements could reach temperatures roughly “the same as the surface of the Sun.”
Russia also sentenced a lawyer, Dmitry Talontov, to seven years in prison for comparing Moscow’s actions in Ukraine at the start of the invasion to “Nazi practices”, a day after bringing an invasion critic back to trial.
Meanwhile, Ukraine sentenced a woman from the eastern Donetsk region to 15 years in prison on high treason charges for passing sensitive military information to Russia.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
