MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia is selecting targets in Ukraine that could include “decision-making centres” in Kyiv in response to Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian territory with Western weapons, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.
Russian attacks have not so far struck government buildings in the Ukrainian capital. Kyiv is heavily protected by air defences, but Putin says Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted.
“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 a meeting of a security alliance of ex-Soviet countries in Kazakhstan.
“At present, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory. These could be military facilities, defence and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centres in Kyiv,” he said.
Russia says Ukraine fired U.S. ATACMS ballistic missiles into western Russia for the first time on Nov. 19, prompting it to respond two days later by firing the Oreshnik, a new intermediate-range missile, at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Since then, Russia says Ukraine fired more ATACMS at its Kursk region on Nov. 23 and Nov. 25.
Putin said Russia’s production of advanced missile systems exceeds that of the NATO military alliance by 10 times, and that Moscow planned to ramp up production further.
(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou and Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Osborn)
