Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin vows to launch more missiles as Poland warns threat of global war is real
Russian president says Moscow has stockpile of such systems ready to use
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Your support makes all the difference.Vladimir Putin has vowed to launch more strikes using an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile (IBRM) like that fired at Ukraine on Thursday, insisting Moscow had a stockpile of them.
The Russian president said production of the Oreshnik was being launched, adding: “No one in the world has such weapons.”
Testing the hypersonic missile would continue, he said, “including in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia”. There is “a stockpile of such systems ready for use”, he added.
The missile is so powerful, Putin claimed, that the use of several fitted with conventional warheads in one attack could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — nuclear — weapons.
Meanwhile, Poland’s prime minister warned of a real risk of a global conflict breaking out.
Donald Tusk said the war was taking on “dramatic proportions”.
Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday.
Putin said the strike was in retaliation for Ukraine’s using Western-supplied long-range missiles to strike military targets inside Russian territory.
Putin says Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine
Jeremy Kyle cuts off caller who ‘defends’ Putin in heated live interview clash
Russia spokesperson takes phone call during presser telling her not to comment on missile strike
What is the Storm Shadow cruise missile? Ukraine hits Russia with British weapon for first time
Ukraine stepping up air defence development, says Zelensky
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky says his country is working on developing new types of air defence to counter “new risks” following Russia’s deployment of a new medium-range missile.
Mr Zelensky, in his nightly video address, said testing a new weapon for purposes of terror in another country was an international crime and issued a new call for a worldwide “serious response” to keep Russia from expanding the war.
“On my behalf, the Minister of Defence of Ukraine is already holding meetings with our partners regarding new air defence systems capable of protecting lives from new risks,” he said.
“When someone starts using other countries not only for terror, but also for testing their new missiles through acts of terror, then this is clearly an international crime.”
'Axis of China, Russia and North Korea greatest threat since Second World War’
The emerging axis of China, Russia and North Korea has created “the most serious and dangerous challenge” for the West since the Second World War, according to a former top US military chief.
General Jack Keane, a retired four-star general and former vice-chief of the US Army, told The Times: “China, Russia and North Korea are working effectively together. What has happened is that they have perceived us, the US, to be weak and that we have lost the political will to confront them.”
Gen Keane, one of the most influential military figures in Washington and a Donald Trump ally, said: “At the moment there are 10,000 North Korean troops who have joined the Russians.
“But do we have the beginnings of a pipeline of North Korean troops coming to support Russia, another country fighting alongside Russia to try and overthrow Ukraine? This is the biggest escalation of the war.”
He added: “The pressure on [President] Zelensky is enormous. This is not about giving up the 18 per cent of territory the Russians have seized, it’s about human lives. The Ukrainians living in these areas will be subjugated under Russian domination. This is what Zelensky cannot allow to happen. He needs leverage so that he gives up less territory. That’s why we have to give him everything he needs.”
What is the Storm Shadow cruise missile? Ukraine hits Russia with British weapon for first time
Watch: Footage appears to show Russia's ICBM launch hitting Ukraine
Elite’ Russian units becoming ‘obsolete’ in Ukraine war
Russian units fighting in Ukraine which were previously considered “elite” are now becoming “increasingly obsolete” as a result of Russia’s strategy of throwing waves of troops into battle that has turned the frontline into a “meat grinder”, a leading war monitor has said.
Army formations which once carried out specialised tactical tasks in their assault on Ukrainians are now “understrength”, and reliant on infantry-led assaults which fail to deploy any “unique tactics”, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.
Once considered “elite”, the units are “now essentially functioning as understrength motorised rifle units, relying on infantry-led frontal assaults to make tactical gains as opposed to employing any sort of doctrinally unique tactics,” the US-based think tank said in an update on Thursday.
Once ‘elite’ Russian units becoming ‘obsolete’ due to Putin’s war strategy in Ukraine
On Thursday, Russia used a new ballistic missile in Ukraine
UK Foreign Secretary vows to ‘do everything that is necessary’ to help Ukraine
The Foreign Secretary has vowed to continue to “do everything that is necessary” to help Ukraine combat Russia after Vladimir Putin threatened strikes on the UK.
The Russian president used a new ballistic missile against Ukraine on Thursday, with Mr Putin claiming the use of the weapon was in response to the UK and US allowing missiles they have supplied to Ukraine to be used to strike targets in Russia.
“We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities,” he said.
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Foreign Secretary vows to ‘do everything that is necessary’ to help Ukraine
The head of the UK’s armed forces, Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, met Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv to discuss the war on Thursday.
Nato and Kyiv to meet next week
Nato and Ukraine will meet in Brussels, Belgium, next week in response to Moscow’s use of the Oreshnik missile on Dnipro, central Ukraine.
The meeting on Tuesday of the Nato-Ukraine council will happen on ambassadorial level. It was called by Kyiv after the strike on the city of Dnipro.
British man admits arson on Ukraine-linked London property
A British man admitted on Friday that he carried out an arson attack on a London commercial property linked to Ukraine, and that he had accepted pay from a foreign intelligence agency, in a case prosecutors have linked to Russia.
Jake Reeves, 22, pleaded guilty at London’s Woolwich crown court to charges of aggravated arson on the premises belonging to a “Mr X” on an industrial estate in east London in March.
He also admitted a charge under the UK’s new National Security Act (NSA) of obtaining a material benefit from a foreign intelligence service.
Two killed in Russian drone attack on Sumy
A Russian drone attack on the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two people and injured 12 on Friday morning, regional authorities said.
Twelve apartment buildings, five private residences, a store and three cars were damaged after three drones attacked the city around 5am (0300 GMT), the national police said.
Volodymyr Artiukh, Sumy regional governor, said Russian forces had equipped drones with shrapnel for the attack on a densely populated area of the city.
“This weapon is used exclusively to kill people,” Artiukh said, pointing to scars on a damaged building. “Not for a facility, but in order to destroy more people.”
Risk of nuclear war close, North Korea warns
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said the Korean Peninsula has never been so close to a nuclear war, after what he described as “aggressive” moves from the US in particular.
“Never before have the warring parties on the Korean Peninsula faced such a dangerous and acute confrontation that it could escalate into the most destructive thermonuclear war,” Kim said.
“We have already gone as far as we can on negotiating with the United States, but what we became certain of from the result is not the superpower’s willingness to coexist, but its thorough stance of power and aggressive and hostile policy toward us that can never change.”
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