Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to strike Ukraine again with a new nuclear-capable ballistic missile following Moscow’s latest widespread attack on critical energy infrastructure.
More than a million households in Ukraine were left without power following the overnight bombardment, authorities in the country said Thursday. It’s Russia’s 11th large-scale assault on Ukraine’s energy supplies this year alone, according to the Energy Ministry in Kyiv, a strategy that has caused nationwide rolling blackouts.
Speaking at a security summit in Kazakhstan Thursday, Putin claimed the overnight attacks were a response to strikes on Russian territory using US-made ATACMS missiles. He also warned he would consider further launches of Russia’s new “Oreshnik” medium-range ballistic missile, first fired at Ukraine’s Dnipro region last week.
“We will respond to the ongoing strikes on Russian territory by Western-made long-range missiles, including the possible continuation of the Oreshnik test in combat conditions,” he said.
Putin also praised US President-elect Donald Trump, describing him as an “intelligent and experienced” politician capable of finding “solutions,” as tensions rise between Moscow and Kyiv’s Western partners.
The Russian leader claimed his forces hit 17 targets, describing them as “military facilities, defense industry facilities and their support systems,” without acknowledging the attacks on power infrastructure. “As I have said many times, there will always be a response from our side (to the use of American ATACMS),” Putin said.
Putin, who has previously said that Moscow considers itself entitled to use weapons against military targets belonging to countries that allow their weapons to be used against Russia, also threatened further strikes.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense is “selecting targets for hitting on Ukrainian territory,” he said. “These could be military facilities, defense industry enterprises or decision-making centers in Kyiv.”
Russia’s use of the Oreshnik ballistic missile, which carries multiple warheads, last week marked a decisive, and potentially dangerous moment in Moscow’s conflict with the West, and may be the first time such a weapon has been used in war.
Putin claimed the missile can get around air defense systems and if several warheads are used together, “the force of the strike will be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons.”
“Everything that is in the epicenter of the explosion is divided into fractions, into elementary particles, essentially turning into dust,” Putin said, adding that the missile “has no nuclear charge.”
The Russian missile attack on Dnipro was not armed with nuclear warheads, but it used a weapon designed for nuclear delivery to instead launch conventional weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the use of the new missile was “a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war.”
‘Every winter is getting harder’
Ukraine’s energy system came “under massive enemy attack,” overnight, Energy Minister German Halushchenko said Thursday. Bombardments have intensified in recent months, leaving Ukraine in a precarious position as the war grinds into its third winter.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia used cluster munitions in the attack. The weapons, which disperse numerous small bombs over a large area, “make it more more difficult for our rescuers and power engineers” to respond to strikes, Zelensky said.
In the immediate aftermath, Ukraine’s energy operator introduced emergency power cuts in many regions, with large outages in the western regions of Lviv, Volyn and Rivne. It has since shifted back to implementing scheduled hourly power cuts.
At least five people were injured, including one in the central Vinnytsia region, two in the southern Odesa region, and two in the capital Kyiv, officials said. In Kharkiv, a missile struck a civilian business, according to military authorities.
In a statement Thursday, US President Joe Biden condemned the “horrific” attack, which he said “serves as yet another reminder of the urgency and importance of supporting the Ukrainian people in their defense against Russian aggression.”
Air defenses were activated across the country, with damage reported in 14 regions, according to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry. In Kyiv, residents took shelter in metro stations as an air raid alert for the combined missile and drone attack sounded for more than nine hours.
“This morning I heard about three explosions,” Valeriy Dorotiy, a resident of Lutsk, in western Ukraine’s Volyn region, told CNN. He said he couldn’t tell if the blasts were from missiles or Ukrainian air defense interceptions. “After that, the power went out.”
About 215,000 households in the Volyn region were temporarily without power, authorities said earlier.
“I have a power bank for charging my phone, but I did not buy a more powerful station because I did not take it seriously that there would be such attacks and that missiles would reach us,” Dorotiy said, adding that it seemed Russia was concentrating on attacking eastern Ukraine instead. “But it did reach us.”
Kyiv resident Olha Vaynrikh, 32, told Reuters, “Our mornings begin with checking the phone to see if there is an air alert… We are indeed fed up with all of it.”
Roman Turiy, a resident of the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, told CNN that air raid sirens started at 6 a.m. time in his area. “Many missiles of the second wave were already flying toward our region. Around 8:17 a.m., I heard a very loud explosion over Ivano-Frankivsk… I also heard explosions further away in the region.”
Several critical infrastructure facilities had been attacked, he later discovered.
“I expected to be without power for three hours, but according to the new schedule, it looks like we will be without electricity for eight hours today,” Turiy said. “We all understand that every winter is getting harder.”
The onslaught involved about 100 drones and more than 90 missiles, according to Zelensky.
This comes after Russia launched a record 188 drones at Ukraine on Tuesday in a mass attack that damaged critical infrastructure in the west of the country, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
“Every attack like this proves that air defense systems are needed in Ukraine now, where they save lives, not at storage bases,” Zelensky added, urging allies to help his country increase its air defense capabilities.
This story has been updated with additional developments.