Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Ukraine’s parliament cancelled a session on Friday (November 22, 2024) as security was tightened after Russia deployed a new ballistic missile that threatened to escalate the nearly three-year war.

NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks next Tuesday (November 26), the alliance said, following a request from Ukraine. The meeting will be held at the level of ambassadors and will most likely address the new missile threat.

Russian troops also struck Sumy with Shahed drones overnight, killing two people and injuring 12 more, the regional administration said Friday morning. The attack targeted a residential district of the city.

Ukraine’s Suspilne media, quoting Sumy regional head Volodymyr Artiukh, said the Russians used Shaheds stuffed with shrapnel elements for the first time in the region. “These weapons are used to destroy people, not to destroy objects,” said Mr. Artiukh, according to Suspilne.

Separately, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky arrived on a visit to Kyiv. He posted a photo from Kyiv’s railway station on his X account Friday morning.

“I am interested in how the Ukrainians are coping with the bombings, how Czech projects are working on the ground and how to better target international aid in the coming months. I will discuss all of this here,” Lipavsky wrote.

Three Ukrainian lawmakers confirmed that the parliamentary session previously scheduled was cancelled due to the ongoing threat of Russian missile attacks targeting government buildings in the city centre.

Not only is the parliament closed, “there was also a recommendation to limit the work of all commercial offices and NGOs that remain in that perimeter, and local residents were warned of the increased threat,” said lawmaker Mykyta Poturaiev, who added this is not the first time such a threat has been received.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office continued to work in compliance with standard security measures, a spokesperson said.

Russia on Thursday fired a new intermediate-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an address on Thursday.

It struck a missile factory in Dnipro in central Ukraine. Putin warned that US air defence systems would be powerless to stop the new missile, which he said flies at 10 times the speed of sound and which he called Oreshnik — Russian for hazelnut tree.

Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate also released details. It said the missile was fired from the 4th Missile Test Range “Kapustin Yar” in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six warheads each carrying six submunitions. The peak speed the missile reached was 11 Machs.

Test launches of a similar missile were conducted at the range in October 2023 and June 2024, the directorate said.

The Pentagon confirmed that Russia’s missile was a new, experimental type of intermediate-range missile based on its RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.