Vladimir Putin vowed Thursday to massively increase Russia’s arsenal of Oreshnik missiles amid a devastating overnight assault on Ukraine that left nearly one million people without power, directly threatening President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with strikes on Kyiv.
Speaking at a summit in Kazakhstan, the 72-year-old Russian leader announced a 30 percent boost in missile production while praising the devastating capabilities of the new Oreshnik weapon. “Everything that is located in the epicentre of the explosion is divided into fractions, into elementary particles, in fact, into dust,” Putin warned, claiming the missile’s impact would rival nuclear weapons.
Russian forces mounted a 90-missile blitz overnight in what Putin called retaliation for Ukraine’s use of Western-supplied ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia. The assault targeted energy infrastructure with cruise missiles and kamikaze drones, forcing civilians into bomb shelters.
“Energy infrastructure is once again targeted by the enemy’s massive strike,” Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote on Facebook. The attacks crippled utilities nationwide, leaving 260,000 Zhytomyr residents without water and cutting power to the Kherson region.
Putin threatened further escalation, warning of strikes on “military facilities, defence and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centres in Kyiv.” He claimed Russia possesses “ten times more” weapons systems than NATO can provide to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff called the attack evidence of Russia “continuing their tactics of terror,” as officials reported explosions in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa, Lutsk, Mykolaiv and Rivne. The United Nations warned that Russia’s infrastructure attacks could make this winter the “harshest since the start of the war.”
