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Ukraine has said Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022, following days of escalation in the conflict.
Ukrainian air defence forces on Thursday said the missile, which did not carry a nuclear warhead, was fired alongside seven Kh-101 cruise missiles at the southern city of Dnipro.
A senior Ukrainian military official told the FT that the ICBM was an RS-26 Rubezh, which has a range of up to 6,000km and is able to reach any European capital.
According to some analysts, the firing of the RS-26 against a target in Ukraine would mark the first-ever use of an ICBM in combat.
However others cautioned that the RS-26 sits in a grey area in between an intermediate-range missile and ICBM, but said that its use was still intended as a show of strength by Moscow.
“Using these kinds of missiles, whether RS-26 or a true ICBM, in a conventional role does not make a lot of sense because of their relatively low accuracy and high cost,” Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russia’s nuclear forces wrote on X.
“But this kind of a strike might have a value as a signal,” he added.
The use of the RS-26 comes after Ukraine launched US-made long-range Atacms missiles and British Storm Shadows at Russian territory in recent days.
British defence secretary John Healey on Thursday referred to “unconfirmed reports” of “a new ballistic missile” launched at Ukraine that the Russians “have been preparing for months”.
On Wednesday, the US received intelligence about a “significant” Russian air strike and closed its embassy in Kyiv, ordering its staff to shelter in place. The embassies of Italy and Greece also followed suit.
Responding to the Atacms strikes, Russia altered its nuclear doctrine to lower its threshold for first use. ICBMs are designed to carry nuclear warheads across continents, by contrast with so-called short- and medium-range missiles.
Their range of thousands of miles is far greater than that of missiles such as Atacms and Storm Shadows, which can travel 250km to 300km.
Russia has previously used nuclear-capable missiles to hit Ukraine, albeit with shorter ranges. Russian forces have repeatedly fired ground-launched Iskander short-range ballistic missiles and the air-launched hypersonic Kinzhal missile, both of which are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Ukraine said it had intercepted six of the Russian missiles, but not the ICBM, which it said had been launched from Russia’s southern Astrakhan region.
The RS-26 Rubezh is an experimental weapon reportedly based on the Topol-M ICBM and, according to some analysts, sits in a category of missiles in between intermediate range and ICBM.
Most ICBMs have a range far greater than the RS-26 and can travel between 8,000km and 15,000km.
The “RS-26 is not really an intercontinental missile. It was tested at the range of more than 5,500km, but it is in effect an intermediate-range missile”, said Podvig
Two people were injured in the attack, according to local authorities. It is not clear what the ICBM was targeting or the extent of the damage caused.
Ukrainian military expert Mykhailo Samus said the use of an ICBM would be intended to signal Moscow’s anger at the US decision to allow the use of Atacms on Russian soil.
The strike comes two months before president-elect Donald Trump re-enters the White House. Trump has pledged to bring the war in Ukraine swiftly to an end, without specifying how he would do so.
Samus said Russia would have had to notify the US that it planned to launch an ICBM to avoid the risk of US systems mistaking it for a nuclear attack on Nato.
He added Ukraine’s air defences do not have the capability to intercept an ICBM.