Putin "New intermediate range missile, not ICBM..."Response to Western Attacks"

[Anchor]
Putin himself said that what Russia fired at Ukraine was not an intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM, but a new hypersonic intermediate-range missile.

"It is a response to Western hostilities," he said, which is interpreted as a warning to the U.S. and Britain for recent attacks on the Russian mainland with their own long-range missiles.

Correspondent Jo Su-hyun reports from London.

[Reporter]
On the morning of the 21st local time, the Ukrainian Air Force claimed that Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile and an ICBM into its Dnipro region.

The distance from Astraghan, Russia, to Dnipro, which was designated as the launch site, is 1,200 kilometers, much shorter than the range of an ICBM of more than 5,000 kilometers.

For this reason, some observed that it was a ballistic missile with a shorter range, and some raised the possibility that it was a high-angle launch that increased the launch angle of the ICBM.

The Russian government initially remained silent on Ukraine's claims.

The camera also caught him instructing a Foreign Ministry spokesperson during the briefing not to comment on his phone.

[Mariah Zakarova / Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson: Yes, I am briefing. (We are consistent with no comment regarding the ballistic missile attack mentioned by the Western media.)

In the end, Russian President Putin came forward.

In a speech on state television, it said it had test-fired a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile, not an ICBM, at Ukrainian military facilities.

It described it as a response to Ukraine's recent attack on Russia with Western long-range missiles.

[Vladimir Putin / Russian President: Test-fired a new Russian medium-range missile system under combat conditions.]

The U.S. official also analyzed that it is not an ICBM.

Russia said it used mid-range ballistic missiles and IRBMs in the test stage, and evaluated that this would not be a game changer in the war.

I'm Jo Suhyun of YTN in London.



Video editing: Yeon Jin-young