Ukraine today issued a chilling warning that Russia’s newly used experimental intermediate-range Oreshnik ballistic missile could hit the UK in just 20 minutes – but Nato played down the risk.
As the fallout from Moscow’s first usage of such a weapon – which can carry nuclear warheads – in an attack on Dnipro on Thursday, continued, what it might possibly mean was the subject of fierce debate.
Kyiv military chiefs warned on the country’s Times of Ukraine channel that the new missile used could hit Britain in 20 minutes.
It claimed the Oreshnik was likely a revamping of an old Cold War intercontinental RS-26 Rubezh missile.
“Most likely, the designation Oreshnik was invented by Putin to create the impression of new missile capabilities and intimidate the West, because there is no information about Oreshnik in the public domain,” said Roman Svitan, a reserve colonel in the Ukrainian armed forces.
“If it was Rubezh, then it has a range of 5,000 to 6,000 kilometres. It will reach London as well.”
Time of Ukraine channel also said its calculations were that the Oreshnok could hit Poland in 12 minutes from a launch in Russia. In 15 minutes it would hit Germany, and in 20 minutes Britain.
But Nato’s spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah remained insistent that Russia’s use of the new ballistic missile “will not change the course of the conflict, or deter Nato allies from supporting Ukraine”.
Her comments came just a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed his military had launched its “newest missile,” an ballistic missile called “Oreshnik,” in an attack on Dnipro in eastern Ukraine earlier that day.
But Ms Dakhlallah said: “The Russian attack on Dnipro on Thursday is yet another example of Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities.”
Putin said the attack was in response to Ukraine targeting facilities in Russian oblasts using Western-supplied long-range missiles.
But while Nato tried to play down the usage of such a weapon, the military in Ukraine warned of potentially catastrophic consequences.
And President Volodymyr Zelensky said it should cause the world to sit up and take note.
Mr Zelensky demanded international action after the use of such a powerful missile.
He said Putin “is lying when he says that Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons is some kind of new step”.
“According to him, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have used such weapons “not for the first time.”
He said: “The world must react to this ….Putin is very sensitive to this.
“He is testing you, dear partners. He must be stopped. If there is no harsh reaction to Russia’s actions, then they see that this is possible.
“Putin must feel what his sick ambitions are worth.”
Ukraine’s parliament yesterday cancelled a sitting amid growing fears of a mammoth strike on Kyiv.
“We were informed about the possible missile threat over the next couple of days [for the] parliament, said MP Taras Batenko.
“We’ll see if it happens or not but I see that Putin raised the stakes for Ukrainian people and it’s obvious that Ukraine has to react to this.
“But more than Ukraine, the international community should react.”
Earlier this month, President Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to use ATACMS missiles to strike deep into the territory of the Russian Federation.
Later, Ukraine launched ATACMS missiles for the first time in Russia’s Bryansk Oblast. A few days later it made its first use of UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.
After depicting such a move as crossing another “red line” the Kremlin had drawn, Putin said his country would respond.
As the conflict escalates, in a separate development yesterday, a North Korean general was wounded in the Kursk airstrike by British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles.
The strike hit a sanatorium of the Russian Presidential Property Management Department, where, as Ukrainian channels suggest, a war command post was located.
Meanwhile, the Sumy region in Ukraine was hit with Russian mortars laced with shrapnel in an apparent bid to harm civilians.
