Russia has showcased a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile system that it has placed on combat duty in neighbouring Belarus.
President Putin has said that the Oreshnik missile, whose name means hazel tree, is unstoppable. With a range of 5,500km, the missile is already capable of striking anywhere in Europe, and parts of the west coast of the United States, from bases within Russia.
“The Oreshnik missile division began performing combat duty tasks in in designated areas of the country,” the defence ministry of Belarus said.
Their deployment to Belarus, though largely symbolic, could feasibly mean they would reach some western European targets more quickly. The missile has been used in combat once, in November last year, in a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
A video of specialist troops camouflaging the missile system with netting, released by both the Russian and Belarusian defence ministries, was published hours after Putin said, without evidence, that Ukraine had launched dozens of drones at his residence.
President Zelensky has said that the claim was a lie aimed at wrecking a US-Ukrainian peace plan to end the war, which began in 2022.
Andriy Sybiga, the Ukrainian foreign minister, wrote on X on Tuesday: “Russia still hasn’t provided any plausible evidence. And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened.”
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said Russia would “toughen” its approach to negotiations over the war in Ukraine in response to what he called a terrorist attack by Kyiv.
• Dispatches from the Russia-Ukraine war
He said: “The diplomatic consequence will be to toughen the negotiating position of the Russian federation. We see that Zelensky himself is trying to deny this [attack], and many western media outlets, playing along with the Kyiv regime, are starting to spread the theme that this did not happen. This is a completely insane assertion.”
Moscow has not supplied video of the purported attack, which would have been the biggest in the Novgorod region this year.
Russian troops at the Oreshnik base in Belarus. The deployment is largely symbolic
RUSSIAN DEFENSE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE/AP
Russia’s defence ministry said more than half the alleged drones were shot down over the Bryansk region, about 300 miles from Valdai, Putin’s heavily-protected retreat. It did not say why it thought the drones were heading for Valdai, and Putin failed to mention a Ukrainian drone attack during a meeting in the Kremlin with defence and security chiefs shortly before Lavrov released his statement.
There were no social media reports of explosions and officials did not put out air-raid alerts, as is the usual wartime practice.
Despite the discrepancies in the Russian account, President Trump said that he had been angered by news of the attack, which he said he had heard of from Putin. “I don’t like it. It’s not good,” he said.
It is not inconceivable, analysts have said, that Ukraine would consider Putin’s residence a tempting target, but it would make little sense for Kyiv to carry out such an attack during talks between Trump and Zelensky. “The Kremlin appears to have been very concerned that the negotiation process between Ukraine and the United States had advanced too far, and therefore needed to be derailed,” said Volodymyr Fesenko, a Ukrainian political analyst.
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and prime minister, said that Zelensky should be killed as revenge for the alleged drone attack.
“The Grim Reaper is often breathing down the bastard’s neck,” Medvedev, who is now a senior security official, wrote on social media.
The leaders of Ukraine and Poland said on Tuesday that the prospect of American troops in Ukraine had been raised in talks with the US.
Presidents Zelensky and Trump have been in talks at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach
JIM WATSON/AFP
Zelensky appeared to confirm that discussions were taking place about an American postwar presence after Donald Tusk, the prime minister of Poland, told reporters that hope for peace had grown because Trump seemed willing to consider it.
Trump said in August that the US would assist in maintaining security guarantees “by air” but has consistently ruled out supplying ground troops. This is also considered a red line by his Maga movement, which wants an end to US involvement in overseas conflicts.
• Zelensky urges Trump to provide security guarantees for 50 years
Tusk said in Warsaw: “The key result of recent days is the American declaration … [of] willingness to participate in security guarantees for Ukraine after a peace agreement, including the presence of American troops, for example, on the border or on the line of contact between Ukraine and Russia.
“We’ll see how consistent our partners across the Atlantic will be but this gives hope for a successful outcome.”
Zelensky, asked to respond in a WhatsApp conversation with reporters, said: “These are the troops of the United States, and only the US makes such decisions.” He added: “We would like this. It would be a strong position for security guarantees.”
Russia has said that any deployment of Nato troops in Ukraine would be unacceptable.