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Russia has attacked Ukraine with a 3M22 Zircon hypersonic cruise missile for the first since the start of the war, Ukrainian experts said.
The anti-ship missile, described by Vladimir Putin as “invincible”, was allegedly deployed during February 7 strikes that killed at least five and injured 50, the Kyiv Independent reported.
“This is evidenced by the markings on parts and fragments, the identification of components and parts, and the features of the relevant type of weapon,” Oleksandr Ruvin, director of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, wrote on Telegram.
Moscow has previously claimed that the missiles travel at nine times the speed of sound and can hit targets at a distance of 1,000km. The researchers who examined the debris said that “the weapon does not meet the tactical and technical characteristics claimed” by Russia.
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The Kremlin declared Estonia’s prime minister a ‘wanted person’ as the country’s intelligence service warns of conflict with Russia within the next decade.
Moscow’s interior ministry’s database of wanted people listed Kaja Kallas, who has led Estonia since 2021, as “wanted under the criminal code” without naming the charges.
The news comes as Estonia’s foreign intelligence service joined fellow European Nations in raising the alarm over direct military confrontation with Russia in the years to come.
The chief of the intelligence service said the assessment was based on Russian plans to double the number of forces stationed along its border with Nato members Finland and the Baltic States of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia.
At the release of Estonia’s national security threats report, Kaupo Rosin told reporters: “Russia has chosen a path which is a long-term confrontation ... and the Kremlin is probably anticipating a possible conflict with Nato within the next decade or so.”
Taimar Peterkop, an Estonian state secretary, and Simonas Kairys, a Lithuanian Culture Minister, were also added to the wanted list.
Russia’s missile and drone attack on Dnipro this morning forced authorities to close schools and evacuate a hospital, Ukrainian officials and media said.
This comes on top of previous reports that a power station in the region was “severely damaged”.
The city of just under one million people came under attack from a missile and four groups of drones approaching from the south, east and north, Ukraine’s Air Force said on the Telegram messaging app.
See post at 8.19am for more details.
Russia warned the West that Moscow’s response would be “extremely tough” if the United States and European Union seized hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Russian assets.
The EU on Monday agreed to set aside windfall profits made on around $300 billion (£2.7 billion) of frozen Russian central bank assets, marking the bloc’s first step towards using the money to finance the reconstruction of Ukraine.
Maria Zakharova, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, told Russian media: “This is theft: It’s the appropriation of something that doesn’t belong to you.”
Ms Zakharova said the response from Moscow would be “extremely tough” as Russia felt it was essentially dealing with thieves.
“Considering that our country has qualified this as theft, the attitude will be towards thieves,” Ms Zakharova said. “Not as political manipulators, not as overplayed technologists, but as thieves.”
A Russian drone attack on an oil depot in Kharkiv on Feb 10 led to a fuel leak that has contaminated over 10,000 square metres of land, regional police reported.
The attack sparked a blaze that raged for three days, engulfing 15 homes, killing at least seven people, including a family with three children, and injuring 57, local officials said.
The depot stored over 3,800 metric tons of fuel, which has polluted the surrounding land and spilled into the Nemyshlia River that flows through Kharkiv, local media reported.
The oil spill is the latest environmental disaster caused by Russian aggression, which Denys Shmyhal, the prime minister, last year estimated had caused more that €55.6 billion (£47.5 billion) in damage since the start of the conflict.
Ukraine destroyed 16 of the 23 Shahed drones Russia launched overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force reportedThe drones were launched from Primorsko-Akhtarsk in southern Russia as well as cape Chauda in the occupied Crimea.
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