عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
World

NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
TT
TT

NATO and Ukraine to Hold Emergency Talks after Russia’s Attack with New Hypersonic Missile

A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)
A missile shrapnel lies on the grass in front of damaged rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, following a Russian attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, on November 22, 2024. (AFP)

NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war.

The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.”

Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday's Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro.

In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech to his nation that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of US and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

Putin said Western air defense systems would be powerless to stop the new missile.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov kept up Russia's bellicose tone on Friday, blaming “the reckless decisions and actions of Western countries” in supplying weapons to Ukraine to strike Russia.

"The Russian side has clearly demonstrated its capabilities, and the contours of further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns were not taken into account have also been quite clearly outlined," he said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the European Union, echoed Moscow's talking points, suggesting the use of US-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct American involvement.

“These are rockets that are fired and then guided to a target via an electronic system, which requires the world’s most advanced technology and satellite communications capability,” Orban said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption ... that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of American personnel.”

Orban cautioned against underestimating Russia’s responses, emphasizing that the country’s recent modifications to its nuclear deployment doctrine should not be dismissed as a “bluff.” “It’s not a trick... there will be consequences,” he said.

Separately in Kyiv, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský called Thursday's missile strike an “escalatory step and an attempt of the Russian dictator to scare the population of Ukraine and to scare the population of Europe.”

At a news conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Lipavský also expressed his full support for delivering the necessary additional air defense systems to protect Ukrainian civilians from the “heinous attacks.”

He underlined that the Czech Republic will impose no limits on the use of its weapons and equipment given to Ukraine.

Three lawmakers from Ukraine's parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, confirmed that Friday's previously scheduled session was called off due to the ongoing threat of Russian missiles targeting government buildings in central Kyiv.

In addition, there also was a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and nongovernmental organizations "in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the Oreshnik missile, whose name in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” was fired from the Kapustin Yar 4th Missile Test Range in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six nonnuclear warheads each carrying six submunitions and reached a spoeed of Mach 11, it said.

Test launches of a similar missile were conducted in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said. The Pentagon confirmed the missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

Thursday's attack struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. The military facility is located about 4 miles (6 1/2 kilometers) southwest of the center of Dnipro, a city of about 1 million that is Ukraine’s fourth-largest and a key hub for military supplies and humanitarian aid, and is home to one of the country’s largest hospitals for treating wounded soldiers from the front before their transfer to Kyiv or abroad.

The stricken area was cordoned off and out of public view. With no fatalities reported from the attack, Dnipro residents resorted to dark humor on social media, mostly focused on the missile’s name, Oreshnik.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russia struck a residential district of Sumy overnight with Iranian-designed Shahed drones, killing two people and injuring 13, the regional administration said..

Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the drones were stuffed with shrapnel elements. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.

Most Viewed

 
 
World

How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
TT
TT

How Likely Is the Use of Nuclear Weapons by Russia?

This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)
This photograph taken at a forensic expert center in an undisclosed location in Ukraine on November 24, 2024, shows parts of a missile that were collected for examination at the impact site in the town of Dnipro following an attack on November 21. (Photo by Roman PILIPEY / AFP)

On 24 February 2022, in a televised speech heralding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin issued what was interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against NATO countries should they interfere.

“Russia will respond immediately,” he said, “and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history.”

Then on 27 February 2022, Putin ordered Russia to move nuclear forces to a “special mode of combat duty’, which has a significant meaning in terms of the protocols to launch nuclear weapons from Russia.”

Dr. Patricia Lewis, director of the International Security program at Chatham House, wrote in a report that according to Russian nuclear weapons experts, Russia’s command and control system cannot transmit launch orders in peacetime, so increasing the status to “combat” allows a launch order to go through and be put into effect.

She said Putin made stronger nuclear threats in September 2022, following months of violent conflict and gains made by a Ukrainian counterattack.

“He indicated a stretch in Russian nuclear doctrine, lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use from an existential threat to Russia to a threat to its territorial integrity,” Lewis wrote.

In November 2022, according to much later reports, the US and allies detected manoeuvres that suggested Russian nuclear forces were being mobilized.

Lewis said that after a flurry of diplomatic activity, China’s President Xi Jinping stepped in to calm the situation and speak against the use of nuclear weapons.

In September 2024, Putin announced an update of the 2020 Russian nuclear doctrine. The update was published on 19 November 2024 and formally reduced the threshold for nuclear weapons use.

According to Lewis, the 2020 doctrine said that Russia could use nuclear weapons “in response to the use of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, as well as in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”

On 21 November 2024, Russia attacked Dnipro in Ukraine using a new ballistic missile for the first time.

She said Putin announced the missile as the ‘Oreshnik’, which is understood to be a nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile which has a theoretical range of below 5,500km.

Lewis added that Russia has fired conventionally armed nuclear-capable missiles at Ukraine throughout the war, but the Oreshnik is much faster and harder to defend against, and suggests an escalatory intent by Russia.

Nuclear Response During Cold War

In her report, Lewis said that nuclear weapons deterrence was developed in the Cold War primarily on the basis of what was called ‘mutually assured destruction’ (MAD).

The idea behind MAD is that the horror and destruction from nuclear weapons is enough to deter aggressive action and war, she added.

But the application of deterrence theory to post-cold war realities is far more complicated in the era of cyberattacks and AI, which could interfere with the command and control of nuclear weapons.

In light of these risks, presidents Biden and Xi issued a joint statement from the 2024 G20 summit affirming the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons.

The US and Russia exchange information on their strategic, long-range nuclear missiles under the New START agreement – a treaty to reduce and monitor nuclear weapons between the two countries which is set to expire in February 2026.

But, Lewis said, with the US decision to exit the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019, there are no longer any agreements between the US and Russia regulating the number or the deployment of ground-launched nuclear missiles with a range of 500-5,500 km.

She said short-range nuclear weapons were withdrawn and put in storage as a result of the 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives but are not subject to any legal restraints.

The 10th NPT Review Conference was held in 2022 in New York. The issue of nuclear weapons threats and the targeting of nuclear power stations in Ukraine were central to the debate.

Lewis noted that a document was carefully crafted to finely balance concerns about the three pillars of the treaty – non-proliferation, nuclear disarmament and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. But Russia withdrew its agreement on the last day of the conference, scuppering progress.

“It was believed that if Russia were to use nuclear weapons it would likely be in Ukraine, using short range, lower yield ‘battlefield’ nuclear weapons,” she said, adding that Russia is thought to have more than 1,000 in reserve.

“These would have to be taken from storage and either connected to missiles, placed in bombers, or as shell in artillery,” Lewis wrote.

Increasingly the rhetoric from Russia suggests nuclear threats are a more direct threat to NATO – not only Ukraine – and could refer to longer range, higher yield nuclear weapons.

For example in his 21 September 2022 speech, Putin accused NATO states of nuclear blackmail, referring to alleged “statements made by some high-ranking representatives of the leading NATO countries on the possibility and admissibility of using weapons of mass destruction – nuclear weapons – against Russia.”

Putin added: “In the event of a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and to defend Russia and our people, we will certainly make use of all weapon systems available to us. This is not a bluff.”

There have been no expressed nuclear weapons threats from NATO states.

NATO does rely on nuclear weapons as a form of deterrence and has recently committed to significantly strengthen its longer-term deterrence and defence posture in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The current UK Labor government has repeatedly reiterated its commitment to British nuclear weapons – including before the July 2024 election, according to Lewis.

Therefore, she said, any movement to ready and deploy Russian nuclear weapons would be seen and monitored by US and others’ satellites, which can see through cloud cover and at night – as indeed appears to have happened in late 2022.

Lewis concluded that depending on other intelligence and analysis – and the failure of all diplomatic attempts to dissuade Russia – NATO countries may decide to intervene to prevent launch by bombing storage sites and missile deployment sites in advance.