Alliance accuses Russia of seeking to intimidate Kyiv’s allies while Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls attack a ‘severe escalation’

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Russia fired an “experimental” ballistic missile at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday in what the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called “a clear and severe escalation” of the 33-month-old war.

Vladimir Putin said the strike was “a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate and short-range missiles”. The Russian president also threatened further attacks, saying Moscow “had the right” to strike western countries that provided Kyiv with weapons used against Russian targets.

The new ballistic missile was part of a wider salvo of nine missiles fired from the Astrakhan region of Russia in the early hours of Thursday. Six of the missiles were intercepted by Ukraine’s air force but the new ballistic missile was not stopped. The missile was said to have hit “without consequences”, Ukraine’s air force said, though it added that complete information about victims had yet to be received.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for strong worldwide condemnation on the strike, describing it as a major step-up in the “scale and brutality” of the war. The Ukrainian president said the attack was “yet more proof that Russia has no interest in peace”, adding that a “response is needed. Pressure is needed. Russia must be forced into real peace, which can only be achieved through strength”.

US and UK sources indicated they believed the missile was an experimental, nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which has a theoretical range of below 3,420 miles (5,500km). That is enough to reach Europe from where it was fired in south-western Russia, but not the US.

UN secretary general António Guterres’s spokesperson said Russia’s use of the new ballistic missile was “yet another concerning and worrying development. “All of this [is] going in the wrong direction,” Stéphane Dujarric said as he called on all parties to de-escalate the conflict and “to protect civilians, not hit civilian targets or critical civilian infrastructure”.

Russian strikes killed at least two people in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, the acting mayor said on Friday. “Several massive explosions occurred in Sumy,” Artem Kobzar said on Telegram. He said air defences were still working as of just before 6am local time and warned residents to stay away from windows. The Sumy regional military administration said a residential neighbourhood had been struck by a Russian drone, adding that rescue operations were under way. It confirmed the two deaths and said 12 people had been injured.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces had captured the eastern Ukrainian village of Dalne in the Donetsk region, a focal point of their advance. Ukraine’s general staff made no acknowledgment of Dalne being in Russian hands. The Ukrainian military’s late report mentioned the village as one of seven in an area where Russian forces had tried to pierce Ukrainian defences 26 times over the previous 24 hours. It said 10 of 16 armed clashes in the area continued.

Ukraine’s parliament postponed a sitting due to have taken place on Friday out of security concerns, public broadcaster Suspilne reported, quoting sources. It said the order told members to keep their families out of Kyiv’s government district and quoted parliamentarians as saying that, for the moment, the next sitting was not scheduled until December.