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Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv shuts parliament after Putin launches new ballistic missile attack

Ukrainian lawmakers have been asked to keep their families out of Kyiv’s government district

Arpan Rai,Andy Gregory
Friday 22 November 2024 06:01 GMT
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Ukraine shut down its parliament today over security concerns, a day after Vladimir Putin launched a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile to attack a Ukrainian military facility.

“On 22 November, plans called for a session of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament), which included questions to the government, but this was cancelled for reasons of potential security issues,” public broadcaster Suspilne reported.

Ukrainian lawmakers have been asked to keep their families out of Kyiv’s government district and the next sitting is not scheduled until December.

This comes within a day of Mr Putin firing his experimental ballistic missile on Ukraine’s Dnipro as the visuals showed a multiple reentry attack on the site.

Ukrainian air defence forces said the missile – which has a range of more than 3,400 miles and can be used to carry nuclear warheads – was fired from Russia’s Astrakhan region, on the Caspian Sea.

Nato has doubled down on its backing for the war-hit country and said that “deploying this capability will neither change the course of the conflict nor deter Nato allies from supporting Ukraine”.

How could the war in Ukraine escalate?

The latest suspected ICBM strikes come after the war has taken on a growing international dimension with the arrival of North Korean troops to help Russia on the battlefield — a development that officials said prompted US President Joe Biden’s policy shift on allowing Ukraine to fire longer-range US missiles into Russia.

The attack comes two days after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a revised nuclear doctrine that formally lowers the threshold for the country’s use of nuclear weapons.

Putin has previously warned the US and other NATO allies that allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied longer-range weapons to hit Russian territory would mean that Russia and NATO are at war.

And the new doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.

While the doctrine envisions a possible nuclear response by Russia to a conventional strike, it is formulated broadly to avoid a firm commitment to use nuclear weapons and keep Putin’s options open.

Barney Davis21 November 2024 11:47

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