President Vladimir V. Putin escalated a tense showdown with the West on Thursday, saying that Russia had launched a new intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine in response to Ukraine’s recent use of American and British weapons to strike deeper into Russia.

In what appeared to be an ominous threat against Ukraine’s western allies, Putin also asserted that Russia had the right to strike the military facilities of countries “that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities”.

His warning came hours after Russia’s military fired a nuclear-capable ballistic missile at Ukraine that western officials and analysts said was meant to instil fear in Kyiv and the West. Though the missile carried only conventional warheads, using it signalled that Russia could strike with nuclear weapons if it chooses.

“The regional conflict in Ukraine, previously provoked by the West, has acquired elements of a global character,” Putin said in a rare address to the nation. “We are developing intermediate- and shorter-range missiles as a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate- and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.”

Putin has frequently wielded the threat of nuclear weapons to try to keep the West off balance. But sending an intermediate-range missile with nuclear capabilities into Ukraine and brandishing the strike as a threat to the West ratcheted up tensions even further.

Sounding by turns boastful and threatening, Putin called Thursday’s missile strike a successful “test” of a new intermediate-range ballistic missile called the Oreshnik. And he made clear that the attack on Ukraine was in response to a recent decision by the Biden administration to grant Ukraine permission to use US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles to hit targets inside Russia.

Ukraine used ATACMS and the British Storm Shadow missile against Russia for the first time this week, Ukrainian officials said. “This is an escalation,” said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “I believe the situation is very dangerous.”

New York Times News Service