NATO and Ukraine to hold emergency talks after Russia’s attack with new hypersonic missile

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NATO and Ukraine to hold emergency talks after Russia’s ******* with new hypersonic missile

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with

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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.

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In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir ****** said in a nationally televised speech that the ******* with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was in retaliation for Kyiv’s use of

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capable of striking deeper into Russian territory.

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

Ukrainian military officials said the missile that hit Dnipro had reached a speed of Mach 11 and carried six nonnuclear warheads each releasing six submunitions.

Speaking Friday to military and weapons industries officials, ****** said Russia is launching production of the Oreshnik.

“No one in the world has such weapons,” he said with a thin smile. “Sooner or later other leading countries will also get them. We are aware that they are under development.”

But he added, “we have this system now. And this is important.”

Testing the missile will continue, “including in combat, depending on the situation and the character of security threats created for Russia,” ****** said, noting there is ”a stockpile of such systems ready for use.”

****** said that while it isn’t an intercontinental missile, it’s so powerful that the use of several of them fitted with conventional warheads in one ******* could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons.

Gen. Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could reach targets across Europe and be fitted with nuclear or conventional warheads, echoing ******’s claim that even with conventional warheads, “the massive use of the ******* would be comparable in effect to the use of nuclear weapons.”

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 Orbán, widely seen as having the warmest relations with the Kremlin in the ********* Union, echoed Moscow’s talking points, suggesting the use of U.S.-supplied weapons in Ukraine likely requires direct ********* 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,” Orbán said on state radio. “There is a strong assumption … that these missiles cannot be guided without the assistance of ********* personnel.”

Orbán 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.

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 ******* struck the Pivdenmash plant that built ICBMs when Ukraine was part of the ******* 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 *******, 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, ******** 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 ******** people, not to ******** objects,” said Artiukh, according to Suspilne.

—— Associated Press journalists Lorne Cook in Brussels, Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, and Justin Spike in Budapest, Hungary, contributed.

—— Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at

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