Putin Threatens To Target Kyiv With New Missile

Vladimir Putin has said a Russian overnight missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s power grid was a response to Ukraine’s use of long-range US and UK weapons inside Russia.

The Russian leader also threatened to target Kyiv’s “decision-making centres” with Russia’s new ballistic missile. Speaking further he said Moscow will use “all means of destruction at Russia’s disposal” were Ukraine to ever get hold of nuclear weapons, according to Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

“We will not allow this,” the Russian president says. However, the BBC says his claim of responding to the use of long-range Western weapons was deliberately misleading – the last big attack was before such weapons were deployed.

Ukraine reported no fatalities after the attack, but more than a million Ukrainians are left without power as 12 targets were struck. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as a “vile escalation”.

Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said the country’s air defence systems destroyed 25 Ukrainian drones overnight over four regions. Fourteen of the drones were destroyed over the Krasnodar region in the south, six over the western Bryansk region, three over Moscow-annexed Crimea and two over the southern Rostov region, the ministry said.