NATO and Ukraine will convene emergency talks Tuesday following Russia’s deployment of an experimental hypersonic missile against Ukrainian targets, marking a significant escalation in the 33-month conflict that Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Friday is “entering a decisive phase.”
President Vladimir Putin used a nationally televised address to announce Russia’s first combat use of the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile, claiming Western air defense systems cannot intercept the weapon. Ukrainian military intelligence reported the missile reached Mach 11 speeds and carried six warheads, each containing six submunitions, in Thursday’s strike on Dnipro.
“No one in the world has such weapons,” Putin told military and defense industry officials Friday, announcing the missile’s entry into production. “Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development. But we have this system now. And this is important.”
The Russian leader warned that multiple conventional-warhead Oreshnik strikes could match the devastation of nuclear weapons, a claim echoed by Strategic Missile Forces commander Gen. Sergei Karakayev. Putin said testing would continue “including in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia.”
Ukrainian authorities canceled parliament’s Friday session and tightened security around government buildings in Kyiv. “Local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, though President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office maintained normal operations under standard security protocols.
The Pentagon confirmed the weapon was an experimental intermediate-range missile based on the RS-26 Rubezh ICBM. Ukrainian intelligence said it was launched from Russia’s Kapustin Yar test range, flying 15 minutes before striking Dnipro’s Pivdenmash plant, a former Soviet ICBM facility.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the EU leader closest to Moscow, suggested U.S.-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely require direct American involvement. “These missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel,” he said on state radio, warning that recent changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine shouldn’t be dismissed as “a bluff.”
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský, visiting Kyiv Friday, called the strike “an escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.” He pledged continued Czech military support with no restrictions on Ukraine’s use of supplied weapons.
Overnight, Russian forces also struck the city of Sumy with Iranian-designed Shahed drones packed with shrapnel, killing two people and wounding 13. Regional head Volodymyr Artiukh told Ukrainian media the weapons were “used to destroy people, not to destroy objects.”
