Ukraine war latest: Putin says Russia may strike 'decision-making centres' in Kyiv over Ukraine's use of missiles from Wes (2024)

As we have been reporting this morning, Russia carried out a series of strikes on Ukraine overnight, with energy infrastructure among the targets.

Images emerging from the country in the last hour show the aftermath of the attacks in some parts, along with picture of families taking refuge from the bombing in capital city, Kyiv.

Russia is selecting targets inUkrainethat could include "decision-making centres" in Kyiv in response to Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian territory with Western weapons, Vladimir Putin has said.

Attacks launched by Moscow have not so far struck government buildings in the Ukrainian capital, which is heavily protected by air defences.

Putin says Russia's Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted - although that claim has been questioned by at least one expert (see 7.55 post).

"Of course, we will respond to the ongoing strikes on Russian territory with long-range Western-made missiles, as has already been said, including by possibly continuing to test the Oreshnik in combat conditions," Putin told a meeting of a security alliance of ex-Soviet countries in Kazakhstan.

"At present, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory. These could be military facilities, defence and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centres in Kyiv."

Russia saysUkrainefired ATACMS ballistic missiles supplied by the US into western Russia for the first time on 19 November, prompting it to respond two days later by firing the Oreshnik, a new intermediate-range missile, at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Since then, Russia saysUkrainefired more ATACMS at its Kursk region on 23 and 25 November.

Putin claimed Russia's production of advanced missile systems exceeds that of the NATO military alliance by 10 times, and that Moscow plans to ramp up production further.

By Stuart Ramsay, chief correspondent, in Kyiv

This is the second time in the three weeks I have been in Ukraine that Russia has carried out major nationwide strikes on the country's energy infrastructure.

In many ways it felt like it was building. Since Saturday night, the air raid sirens have been going off more regularly. And last night the air raid notifications on our phones were more regular than usual.

Air defence units across the country had already been bolstered in all the major cities, with special units assigned to protect the capital Kyiv, which the military said has always been a prime target for Russia.

Today's attacks were nationwide, affecting all of Ukraine's major cities, bringing about the loss of power to one million in the country's west, and rolling power cuts elsewhere.

The Russian strategy is to undermine morale and wear down the Ukrainian people.

Targeting energy infrastructure doesn't necessarily have any military advantage for the Russians, but it is an attack on Ukraine's psyche.

Speaking to people who live here in the capital over the last few days, they say the combination of the power cuts and the threat of drones and missiles from the skies has a big impact on them, and in particular on children, some of whom have found themselves in air raid shelters for yet another night.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been responding to the major attack launched on Ukraine overnight.

The Ukrainian president said Russia used cruise missiles with cluster munitions to attack Ukrainian energy infrastructure this morning - calling it a "despicable escalation".

"In total, approximately 100 strike drones and over 90 missiles of various types were launched," he said.

"Several regions reported Kalibr missile strikes with cluster munitions, deliberately aimed at civilian infrastructure. The use of these cluster elements significantly complicates the work of our rescuers and power engineers in mitigating the damage, marking yet another despicable escalation in Russia's terrorist tactics."

He also reiterated his call to Kyiv's Western allies to provide more air defence and ensure timely deliveries, especially during critical winter months asUkraine struggles to protect its energy infrastructure from the strikes.

By James Sillars, business and economics reporter

The Russian rouble has been attracting attention over the past 24 hours.

The currency slipped to its weakest level versus the dollar since the early months of the Ukraine war yesterday.

A senior Russian bank boss was quoted as blaming the plunge on new US sanctions against the country's third largest bank, Gazprombank, which is a key player in Russia's energy trading.

The rouble touched 110 versus the US currency.

It meant that it had lost a third of its value since August.

The rouble clawed back some ground after Russia's central bank responded by saying it would temporarily halt foreign currency purchases.

Russia cannot buy dollars or euros due to sanctions so it has been looking to China's currency to service its needs in recent years.

Currency weakness is a problem for any economy as it makes purchases abroad more expensive, stoking domestic inflation.

The annual pace of price growth in Russia's economy is 8% and being further fuelled by a similar figure for wages.

The central bank interest rate, aimed at tackling inflation, stands at 21%.

Footage released by Russia's Defence Ministry shows a Su-34 bomber from the country's air force launching strikes on what it says are Ukrainian forces in the border area of the Kursk region.

The ministry said the crew "carried out a strike on a concentration of personnel, armoured and automobile military".

"The strike was carried out with aerial bombs with a universal planning and correction module," it added.

Russia's large-scale attack on Ukrainian energy infrastructure this morning "dealt a hard blow" and "used a lot of cluster munitions", a source inUkraine's energy industry has said.

The attack cut power to at least one million people across three western regions of the country, local officials reported earlier today.

The use of cluster munitions is limited under a 2008 convention, although neither Russia nor Ukraine are signatories.

Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia would start mass-producing a new hypersonic, non-nuclear ballistic missile that it fired at Dnipro.

In a televised address, the Russian president said the intermediate-range missile, which he called Oreshnik, the Russian word for hazel tree, had been used in response to US and UK weapons being used by Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia.

Following the strike, Putin said the Oreshnik was hypersonic and could not be intercepted - a claim that prompted some alarm in the West, particularly when the leader subsequently approved changes that lowered the threshold for Russia to launch a nuclear strike.

However, Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, cast doubt on those claims.

He noted that all ballistic missiles of that range were hypersonic, and that missile interceptors such as Israel's Arrow 3 and the US SM-3 Block 2A were designed to destroy them.

None of the technology in the new Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that hit Ukraine is novel but getting a close, hands-on look could yield interesting insight into the latest Russian missile designs, Lewis added.

"This is a new capability, but this is not a new capability that represents a dramatic change in the way that conventional weapons are developed," he said.

"It's a series of old technologies that have been put together in a new way."

Russia's air defence systems destroyed 25 Ukrainian drones over four regions overnight, the defence ministry has said.

It said 14 of the drones were destroyed over the Krasnodar region, six over the Bryansk region, three over Moscow-annexed Crimea and two over the Rostov region.

Krasnodar's regional governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, said two districts in the southern Russian region were subjected to a "massive drone attack", leaving one civilian injured.

A local Telegram channel published footage showing an object crashing into a building in the town of Slavyansk-na-Kubani, followed by a loud boom and fireball.

We are now receiving reports that Russia has also launched attacks on Lviv, according to the governor of the western Ukrainian region.

We'll bring you more detail on this as we get it.