Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged Kyiv’s partners to deliver a “strong reaction” after Vladimir Putin confirmed Russia’s use of a medium-range ballistic missile against Ukraine for the first time in the war.
Calling Moscow’s strike on the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday morning a “clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality” of the war, Zelensky warned on X that Putin was “testing” Ukraine’s partners and should be made to “feel the cost of his deranged ambitions”.
“It is clear who the sole culprit of this war is — who started it on 24 February and who continues to pour all resources into its continuation. He must be stopped. A lack of tough reactions to Russia’s actions sends a message that such behaviour is acceptable. This is what Putin is doing,” Zelensky said.
At a briefing on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned Russia’s escalation of the conflict “at every turn” — including by involving North Korean soldiers in the war, a “significant change” that the US had warned against — but stressed that the strike would not affect the Biden administration’s plans to “surge” US military aid for Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
“We will not be deterred here. We are going to continue to make sure that the Ukrainians have what they need on the ground,” Jean-Pierre said.
In an evening address to the nation on Thursday, Putin said that Russia had struck a “defence industry facility” in Dnipro with an Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile equipped with a non-nuclear hypersonic warhead.
The combat testing of the Oreshnik was carried out “in response to NATO’s aggressive actions against Russia”, namely the attacks on military facilities in Russia’s Bryansk and Kursk regions with Western-made ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, Putin said, adding that Russia was “entitled” to use its weapons “against the military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons” against Russian targets should the situation escalate.