Across Ukraine, Russian missile attacks were reported, with emergency power outages affecting more than one million people amid freezing temperatures.
President Vladimir Putin has said 100 drones and 90 missiles were launched at Ukraine over the last two days “in response to strikes deep” inside Russia as he threatened to hit Kyiv with a new rocket.
Putin spoke on Thursday at a meeting of a security alliance of former Soviet countries in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, after Ukraine said Russian missiles targeted its power infrastructure.
He also commented on Russia’s use last week of the Resnik intermediate-range ballistic missile against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Putin said, while speaking at the summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, that Russia has now initiated a series of production of nuclear-capable weapons, and the Defence Ministry is now choosing new targets in Ukraine for missile strikes using the new missile.
Some of those could be “decision-making centres” in Kyiv after Ukraine struck Russian territory using long-range missiles supplied with the help of Western weapons, he said.
Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Thursday that the power infrastructure of Ukraine “was under massive enemy attack”, forcing the national power grid operator to take emergency power cuts during extremely low temperatures.
