Ukraine-Russia war latest: Putin vows to launch more missiles as Poland warns threat of global war is real

Ukraine’s air force initially said the missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) - the kind that Russia could hit the United States with.

But the US military later said the weapon was an intermediate-range missile based on the design of Russia’s longer-range RS-26 ICBM missile.

The Pentagon said it was fired with a conventional warhead but Moscow could modify it if it wanted, with Russia only possessing a handful of them.

“It could be refitted to certainly carry different types of conventional or nuclear warheads,” Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said.

Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed on Friday that all of the missile’s warheads had hit their targets and hailed what it said was its first successful use of an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile with conventional warheads in combat.

The UK’s Ministry of Defence says it has intelligence saying that Russia is being forced to use its advanced fighter jets for more standard missions.

The MoD said Russia’s air force had failed to establish air superiority over Ukraine “despite technological and numerical advantage” and more than 1,000 days of war.

“Russia has resorted to using their tactical level aviation - such as SU-34 aircraft - as airborne artillery,” it added, without explaining why.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk border region said on Friday that 46 Russian civilian residents of Kursk held by Ukraine had been returned to Russia following negotiations with Kyiv.

Alexei Smirnov said the civilians, including 12 children, had been moved by Ukrainian troops into Ukraine after Kyiv staged a cross-border incursion into the western Russian region of Kursk in August.

Ukraine continues to control part of the region despite Russian attempts to dislodge Kyiv’s forces

The Russian missile that struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday reached a top speed of more than 13,000 kph (8,000 mph) and took about 15 minutes to reach its target from its launch, Ukraine said on Friday in its first public assessment of the new weapon.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow struck a Ukrainian military facility with a new intermediate-range, hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik” as a warning to the West against supporting Ukraine’s war effort.

The attack took place with fighting in the war nearing the three-year mark and Ukraine firing longer-range missiles supplied by its Western allies at targets inside Russia.

“The flight time of this Russian missile from the moment of its launch in the Astrakhan region to its impact in the city of Dnipro was 15 minutes,” the military’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (HUR) said in a statement.

There is a real risk of a global conflict breaking out over the Ukraine war, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk warned.

Mr Tusk said the conflict was taking on “dramatic proportions” with the threat of global conflict “serious and real”.

It comes after Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at a the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday.

“The war in the east is entering a decisive phase, we feel that the unknown is approaching,” Tusk told a teachers conference.

“The conflict is taking on dramatic proportions. The last few dozen hours have shown that the threat is serious and real when it comes to global conflict.”

On Thursday, Russian president Vladimir Putin said the strike was a response to the US and UK allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons.