Putin warns of hypersonic missile strikes on Ukraine government centres
Kyiv is heavily protected by air defences, but Putin says the Oreshnik, which Russia fired for the first time last week, is incapable of being intercepted.
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday warned that Russia would use all available weapons against Ukraine if Kyiv were to acquire nuclear capabilities.
Putin warned that Russia might deploy its new Oreshnik hypersonic missile to target "decision-making centers" in Kyiv in response to Ukrainian missile strikes on Russian territory. So far, Russia has refrained from attacking Ukrainian government institutions such as ministries, parliament, or the president's office during the 33-month war.
The intermediate-range ballistic missile can travel at a speed of Mach 10, or up to three kilometres (1.8 miles) per second, according to Moscow.
Kyiv is heavily protected by air defences, but Putin says the Oreshnik, which Russia fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted - a claim greeted with scepticism by Western experts. "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 leaders of a security alliance of ex-Soviet countries at a summit in Kazakhstan.
Russia's Oreshnik missile
In the press conference, Putin said the weapon had the destructive power of a meteorite.
"The kinetic impact is powerful, like a meteorite falling. We know in history what meteorites have fallen where, and what the consequences were. Sometimes it was enough for whole lakes to form," Putin said.
The weapon is "comparable in strength to a nuclear strike" when used several times at once, the Kremlin chief added, though he said it was not currently equipped with a nuclear device.
The New York Times reported last week that some unnamed Western officials suggested US President Joe Biden could provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons before the end of his term.
"If the country we are essentially at war with becomes a nuclear power, what do we do? In this case, we will use all, and I emphasize all, destructive means available to Russia. Everything: we will not allow it. We will be monitoring their every move," Putin said at a press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan.
Putin further remarked that if any nation were to officially transfer nuclear weapons to Ukraine, it would breach non-proliferation agreements.
Putin also said it was practically impossible for Ukraine to produce a nuclear weapon, but that it might be able to make some kind of "dirty bomb", a conventional bomb laced with radioactive material in order to spread contamination. In that case, Russia would respond appropriately, he said.
Russia has repeatedly said, without providing evidence, that Ukraine might use such a device.
After the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991, Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons but gave them up under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the United States, and Britain. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has often lamented that the loss of these weapons left Ukraine vulnerable, and he has used this as a rationale for seeking NATO membership, a move that Russia strongly opposes.