Kiev has accused Moscow of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk early on Thursday. President Volodymyr Zelensky on the Telegram platform wrote that the missile had the characteristics of an intercontinental ballistic missile, both in terms of speed and altitude. Two Western leaders but later told CNN that it was apparently a shorter-range ballistic missile - not an ICBM.
"On 21 November, Ukraine celebrates the Day of Dignity and Freedom - commemorating the two Ukrainian revolutions and paying tribute to what Ukrainians really are. Also today, our crazy neighbour has once again shown what it really is and how it despises dignity, freedom and human life itself. And how frightened they are.
So scared, they're already using new missiles. And they're searching the world for more weapons. First Iran, then North Korea. Today it was a new Russian missile. All the parameters: speed, altitude - match the parameters of an intercontinental ballistic missile. All expert evaluations are underway. Putin is clearly using Ukraine as a testing ground. Putin is clearly terrified when there is simply a normal life next to him. When people simply have dignity. When a country simply wants to be and has the right to be independent.
Putin is doing whatever it takes to prevent his neighbour from breaking out of his grip. And I thank all Ukrainians who defend Ukraine from this evil - unwaveringly, bravely, firmly. With dignity. That is one of the key words for Ukraine - dignity. And it's a word that will probably never be used to describe Russia again." Zelensky said.
The main difference between ICBMs and other types of ballistic missiles is only in their range. As the name suggests, ICBMs can travel thousands of kilometres - crossing continents - while ballistic missiles have shorter and medium ranges.
But rather than the range of the rocket, what matters is the explosive force the rocket contains - known as the "payload" - he told CNN Fabian Hoffmanna PhD student at the Oslo Nuclear Project.
Although the Russian strike was not nuclear, the missile is believed to have carried a "MIRV" payload, meaning it used multiple warheads to hit separate targets.
MIRVs, or Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles, were developed during the Cold War to allow a missile to deliver multiple nuclear warheads to different targets.
Although the nuclear charge appeared to have been replaced by a non-nuclear charge in this case, the use of MIRV technology was intended to send a message, Hoffmann said.
"The MIRV capability is exclusively associated with nuclear-powered missiles, while no conventional missile system in the Russian arsenal has this technology. Thus, regardless of the missile's precise range, the report continues to focus on the nuclear threat," Hoffmann told CNN.
Russia may be "trying to send a message" to Kiev's Western backers in a week of creeping escalation, a military analyst said, after the Ukrainian military for the first time accused Moscow of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at Ukraine. Although an ICBM can be used to deliver a nuclear warhead, the attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk on Thursday morning was not nuclear.
"What the Russians have apparently done here is to take the nuclear warhead off the missile and launch the missile either as an inert missile with nothing on it, or perhaps with a conventional warhead of some sort," he told CNN Malcolm Davis, senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
But he said the use of the powerful long-range weapon may have been intended to send a signal to the West after Ukraine this week fired US ATACMS and British-French Storm Shadow missiles deep into Russia for the first time.
"They're trying to send a signal. They're trying to massively say to the West, 'Look, the use of these Storm Shadow and ATACMS missiles may challenge Russia's critical interests.' And so they're trying to intimidate us into backing down here," Davis said. But it is "important" that Ukraine and its Western allies "do not back down," he added.
"If this is really a signal to the West to back down, and an implicit nuclear threat, then if we back down, the Russians will just do it again - and again, and again, and again," He said.
CNN/ https://t.me/V_Zelenskiy_official/ gnews - RoZ
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