Ukraine is asking its Western partners for updated air defense systems after Russia fired an ultra-fast ballistic missile at the city of Dnipro this week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday.
Russia has boasted its new “Oreshnik” hypersonic missile is unstoppable by air defenses and has no equivalent anywhere in the world.
“Ukraine’s defence minister is already holding meetings with our partners on new air defence systems — exactly the kind of systems that can protect lives from new risks,” Zelensky said in an evening video address published on social media.
Russia’s launch of the missile was the latest dramatic escalation in the conflict after Kyiv earlier this week fired shorter-range US and UK-supplied missiles onto Russian territory for the first time.
Zelensky also called out Moscow’s key ally China for its response to Moscow’s new missile, which experts say can likely be equipped with a nuclear warhead and fly several thousand kilometres.
China’s foreign ministry said “all parties should remain calm and exercise restraint.”
In his evening address, Zelensky said: “From Russia, this is a mockery of the position of states such as China, states of the Global South, some leaders who call for restraint every time.”
“The world must sound serious in its response, so that Putin is really afraid of expanding the war and feels the real consequences of his actions,” he added.
Kyiv relies on Western weapons to defend against the Russian invasion, launched almost three years ago.
Moscow, however, has said the use of Western arms against Russian territory makes NATO countries direct participants in the conflict and that military sites on their territory are legitimate targets for retaliatory strikes.
Both sides are hurrying to secure a battlefield advantage before Donald Trump is inaugurated as US president in January.
Trump has said that he can broker a peace deal in hours, though he has provided no details on his plan, and repeatedly criticized American aid to Ukraine.
