Russia is selecting targets in Ukraine that could include “decisionmaking centers” in Kyiv in response to Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian territory with Western weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday following strikes on energy facilities across Ukraine.
Russian attacks have so far not struck government buildings in the Ukrainian capital.
Kyiv is heavily protected by air defenses, but Putin said that Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted.
Photo: AFP / Ukrainian Emergency Service
“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, as was done on November 21,” Putin told a meeting of a security alliance of former Soviet states in Kazakhstan.
“At present, the [Russian] Ministry of Defense and the general staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory,” he said. “These could be military facilities, defense and industrial enterprises, or decisionmaking centers in Kyiv.”
Russia said that Ukraine fired US ATACMS ballistic missiles into western Russia for the first time on Tuesday last week, prompting it to respond two days later by firing the Oreshnik, a new intermediate-range missile, at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Earlier yesterday, Russia’s army launched a massive attack on Ukraine’s energy sector, forcing emergency power outages as temperatures dropped to freezing across the country.
Ukrainian Minister of Energy German Galushchenko said that power infrastructure was “under massive enemy attack” after a countrywide air alert was issued for incoming missiles.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported a string of Russian cruise missiles and attack drones heading for cities across the country, including Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa.
“Once again, the energy sector is under massive enemy attack. Attacks on energy facilities are taking place across Ukraine,” Galushchenko said.
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