Ukraine says Russia is first country to use ICBM in war, West unsure

• Ukraine’s military said Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at the country on Thursday.
• Some officials, including President Zelenskyy, say the missile was new and is being investigated.
• But Western officials have pushed back on the ICBM claims.

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

The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched the ICBM at the centrally located city of Dnipro from its southeastern Astrakhan region, several hundred miles away. Kyiv’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security said it is the “first time in history” that this weapon was fired in a war.

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

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

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

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

An ICBM is a ballistic missile generally considered to have a range of over 3,400 miles. It is launched into space from silos or road mobile transports deploying launchers. Some have multiple independent re-entry vehicles with separate warheads for greater destruction. The weapon is primarily strategic and intended for the delivery of a nuclear payload.

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

Western officials challenge Ukrainian ICBM claims, tells several outlets that Russia 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 United States is looking into the situation.

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Russia has not disclosed what type of missile was used in the Dnipro attack. A State Department spokesman was told at a press briefing not to discuss the strike for a moment that has since spread on social media.

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

“Using these kinds of missiles, whether it’s the RS-26 or a true ICBM, in a conventional role doesn’t make much sense because of their relatively low accuracy and high cost,” he said. “But this kind of strike can have value as a signal.”

What that signal might be, says Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, said that the fact that the missile appeared to be carrying return vehicles “is much more significant for signaling purposes and is why Russia chose it.”

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

If Russia launched an ICBM at Ukraine, it would mark a significant escalation in the conflict, which just passed the 1,000-day mark and comes amid a number of significant developments in the war.

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

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