Here is the situation on Friday, November 22:
Ballistic missile attack
- President Vladimir Putin confirmed that Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in response to the United States and United Kingdom allowing Kyiv to strike Russian territory with advanced Western weapons, in a further escalation of the 33-month-old war.
- Putin said civilians would be warned in advance of further strikes with such weapons, and he said the conflict has “acquired elements of a global character”.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said use of the new missile amounted to “a clear and severe escalation” and called for strong worldwide condemnation, lamenting that “right now, there is no strong reaction from the world”.
- Kyiv initially suggested Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile – a weapon designed for long-distance nuclear strikes and never before used in war – but US officials and NATO echoed Putin’s description of the weapon as an intermediate-range ballistic missile, which has a shorter range of 3,000–5,500km (1,860-3,415 miles).
- An anonymous US official told the Reuters news agency that Russia notified Washington shortly before the missile strike, while another official said the US had briefed Kyiv and allies to prepare for the possible use of such weapons.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry said air defence forces had shot down two British Storm Shadow cruise missiles fired by Ukraine, while Russia’s ambassador to the UK Andrei Kelin has warned that Britain “is now directly involved in this war”.
- Russia said a new US ballistic missile defence base in northern Poland will lead to an increase in the overall level of nuclear danger. Warsaw has said “threats” from Moscow only strengthen the argument for NATO defences.
Fighting
- Russia’s Defence Ministry has said its forces captured the eastern Ukrainian village of Dalne in the Donetsk region.
- Ukraine’s General Staff made no acknowledgement of Dalne being in Russian hands, but mentioned the village as one of seven in an area where Russian forces had tried to pierce Ukrainian defences 26 times over the past 24 hours.
- Ukraine’s parliament has postponed a sitting due to have taken place on Friday out of “potential security issues”.
- Russia’s weekend missile strikes hit three of the five working thermal plants owned by Ukrainian power giant DTEK and one of them is still offline, an industry source has said, illustrating the severity of the latest blow to the national grid.
North Korea
- President Joe Biden dropped his opposition to Ukraine firing US missiles at targets inside Russia in response to North Korea’s entry to the war, two sources familiar with the decision have told Reuters.
- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accused the US of ramping up tension and provocations, saying the Korean Peninsula has never faced such risks of nuclear war as now, state media said.
- The defence ministers of South Korea and Japan condemned North Korea’s dispatch of troops to Russia during talks, Seoul’s Defence Ministry said in a statement.
Sanctions
- The US has issued new Russia-related sanctions, including on Russia’s Gazprombank, according to a notice posted on the Department of Treasury’s website.
- Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia have submitted a letter to the European Commission calling for customs duty to be imposed on fertilisers from Russia and Belarus.
