• Ukraine’s military said Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at the country on Thursday.
• Some officials, including President Zelensky, say the missile was new and under investigation.
• However, Western officials have pushed back on the ICBM’s claims.

Ukraine says Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at the country early Thursday. There are some questions about the claim, but if that is what was launched, it would be the first time an ICBM has ever been used in combat.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched the ICBM in the central city of Dnipro from the southeastern Astrakhan region, several hundred kilometers away. The Kyiv Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security said it was “the first time in history” that this weapon had been fired in a war.

Some Western officials are pushing back on the Ukrainian claims, claiming that Russia launched a ballistic missile, but not an ICBM.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the missile that hit Dnipro as “new”, explaining that its speed and height matched that of an ICBM. He said the Kremlin is using Ukraine as a “testing ground.”

There has been some speculation that the Russian missile launched at Ukraine may have been an RS-26, an ICBM in name but an intermediate-range ballistic missile in application.

Heorhii Tykhyi, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, said that “we are waiting for the conclusions of experts to determine the exact type of new missile that Russia fired at Ukraine this morning and which had all the flight characteristics of an ICBM.”

An ICBM is a ballistic missile widely believed to have a range of more than 5,400 miles. It is shot into space from silos or launchers for road-mobile transporters. Some have multiple independent reentry vehicles with separate warheads for greater destruction. The weapon is primarily of strategic importance and intended for delivering a nuclear payload.

Video footage reportedly from the Dnipro attack shows multiple objects hitting the ground, although there appear to be no visible explosions. Some expert observers have said the warheads may have been inert.

Western officials dispute Ukraine’s ICBM claims, telling multiple media outlets that Russia has launched a ballistic missile, but not an ICBM. Some said it was probably a shorter-range IRBM instead. A Pentagon official told Business Insider that the US is investigating the situation.

Russia has not said what type of missile was used in the Dnipro attack. A Foreign Ministry spokesperson was told at a press conference not to discuss the strike at a time when it has since spread on social media.

Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project, said in a discussion on social media that the “intercontinental” claims should be approached with skepticism and caution.

“Using these types of missiles, whether RS-26 or a true ICBM, in a conventional role makes little sense due to their relatively low accuracy and high cost,” he said. “But these types of strikes can have a signaling value.”

As for what that signal might be, Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral researcher at the Oslo Nuclear Project, said the fact that the missile appeared to be carrying reentry vehicles “is much more important for signaling purposes and is the reason Russia chose it. “

“This payload is associated exclusively with nuclear-capable missiles,” he said.

If Russia were to fire an ICBM at Ukraine, it would mark a significant escalation of the conflict, which has just crossed the thousand-day mark and is taking place amid a series of major developments in the war.

The US last weekend eased restrictions on Ukraine’s use of longer-range Western missiles to strike targets inside Russia, and Kiev has since used US-made ballistic missiles and British-made cruise missiles to cross the border for the first time. stiches.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin approved an agreement this week update of the country’s nuclear doctrine. This move appeared to be a direct response to the reversal of Western missile policy.