Ukraine says Russia has fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time since Moscow's full-scale invasion in 2022, following days of escalating conflict.
Ukraine's air defense forces said Thursday that Russia had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time. The missile did not carry a nuclear warhead and was fired along with seven Kh-101 cruise missiles at the southern city of Dnipro.
According to some analysts, the firing of the RS-26 at a target in Ukraine would mark the first use of an ICBM in combat.
However, others have warned that the RS-26 falls in a grey area between an intermediate-range missile and an ICBM, but that its use was still intended as a show of force by Moscow.
“Using these types of missiles, whether RS-26 or a real ICBM, in a conventional role does not make much sense due to their relatively low accuracy and high cost,” Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russia’s nuclear forces, wrote in X.
ABC News reported, citing Western officials, that this was an exaggeration and that the weapon used was in fact a short-range ballistic missile, similar to the types used repeatedly by Russia against Ukraine during the war.
The missile had hit “without consequences”, the air force said, although it added that information on casualties had not yet been received.
Six of the other eight missiles were destroyed by air defenses, the air force said in a morning update.
Ukrainian military expert Mykhailo Samus said that Ukraine's air defenses do not have the capability to intercept an ICBM.
