Russia’s Defence Ministry said the attack was retaliation for an alleged attempted drone strike on President Vladimir Putin’s residence
Russia fired a powerful hypersonic missile at Ukraine near the EU border overnight, in what Kyiv called a new threat to European security that demanded a global response.
Moscow said it had fired the Oreshnik missile in response to what it has described as an attempted drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences last month, which Ukraine has denied and the United States has said did not happen.
It was only the second time Russia has fired the Oreshnik at Ukraine, and came amid a night of air attacks that Ukrainian authorities said also killed four people in Kyiv, knocked out power in the capital and damaged the Qatari embassy there.
The Oreshnik, designed to project power across Europe and which Moscow says is impossible to intercept, is capable of carrying nuclear warheads although there was no suggestion it had done so.
“Such a strike close to EU and Nato border is a grave threat to the security on the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on social media.
“It is absurd that Russia attempts to justify this strike with the fake ‘Putin residence attack’ that never happened,” he added. “Putin uses an intermediate-range ballistic missile near the EU and Nato border in response to his own hallucinations – this is truly a global threat. And it demands global responses.”
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