(LONDON and KYIV) — Russia on Thursday launched an intercontinental ballistic missile toward a southeastern Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said, but two U.S. officials told ABC news it was instead an intermediate-range ballistic missile, or IRBM.
Ukraine’s military was “95% sure” the strike was with an ICBM, a Ukrainian official told ABC News, but added that they were still examining the missile parts on the ground and had not yet reached a final conclusion.
“Today it was a new Russian missile. All the parameters: speed, altitude — match those of an intercontinental ballistic missile,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine said in a statement on social media. “All expert evaluations are underway.”
Moscow did not immediately confirmed the launch, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declining to comment, saying questions about it should be instead directed to the Russian Defense Ministry.
The Ukrainian Air Force announced on Thursday morning that it had tracked the launch of the ICBM, along with six additional missiles, all of which were targeting the Dnipro region. The ICBM appeared to have been launched from the Astrahan region, in Russia’s southwest, Ukrainian military officials said.
All of the missiles were launched in about two hours, beginning at about 5 a.m., Ukraine said.
All were targeted at businesses and critical infrastructure, but only the missile that Ukraine identified as an ICBM struck the city, Ukraine said. The six other missiles were shot down. There were no reports of casualties or significant damage, officials said.
The U.S. officials said the assessment of the launch, the type of missile and warhead and the damage in Dnipro was continuing. The distance from what Ukraine said was the launch point to the strike location in Dnipro is about 600 miles, a distance shorter than what an ICBM would be expected to travel.
Two experts told ABC News the projectile, seen in video circulating online, looks likely to be “a ballistic missile with MIRV-ed capabilities.”
The launch of an ICBM, if confirmed as such, would arrive amid concerns that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could further escalate. Ukraine’s military this week first launched U.S.-made ATACMS missiles toward targets within Russia, days after U.S. President Joe Biden allowed for such use of the long-range weapons.
Kyiv launched on Tuesday six of the ATACMS at targets within Russian territory, according the Russian Defense Ministry.
Zelenskyy said he would not confirm if Ukraine had used ATACMS to conduct a strike on an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of Russia, but said Ukraine has ATACMS and “will use all of these,” against Russia.
Within hours of Russia announcing it had struck down five of the ATACMS on Tuesday, the Kremlin announced that Russian President Vladimir Putin had updated the country’s nuclear doctrine, a move that lowered the bar for Russia to response with nuclear weapons. Russian ICBMs are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, although it appeared the missile fired on Thursday was not equipped with one.
Following that warning, Ukraine on Wednesday fired long-range British Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Russia for the first time, a Ukrainian military unit involved in the operation told ABC News. At least 10 of those missiles hit an estate in the village of Marino, the unit said.
They were targeting a command post where North Korean army generals and officers were present, the unit said. More than 10,000 North Korean troops are said to be operating alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region.
Ukraine’s 413th Separate Unmanned Systems Battalion, which helped provide fire control for the strikes, told ABC News that there was intelligence showing high-ranking North Koreans were present.
Zelenskyy cast the Russian strike on Thursday as a result of Russia and its leader being “terrified.”
“Obviously, Putin is terrified when normal life simply exists next to him. When people simply have dignity. When a country simply wants to be and has the right to be independent,” Zelenskyy said. “Putin is doing whatever it takes to prevent his neighbor from breaking free of his grasp.”
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti, Lauren Minore, Yulia Drozd and Natasha Popova contributed to this report.
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