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News of Moscow’s latest test comes days after Trump warned the US has a nuclear submarine off Russian shores
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Russia has been attacking Ukraine with cruise missiles, whose secret development led to President Donald Trump to abandon a nuclear arms control pact.
The accusations made by Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha to Reuters, marks the first confirmation that Russia has used the ground-launched 9M729 missile in combat anywhere in the world.
It comes amid Moscow’s claims that it will resume nuclear weapons testing if the US does, sparking fears of a renewed arms race.
The remarks came after Trump said he had ordered the US military to resume testing “immediately”.
Trump made the announcement after Vladimir Putin announced a successful test of a Poseidon nuclear-powered submarine torpedo which experts have warned is capable of causing a “radioactive tsunami”.
There are few confirmed details about the Poseidon in the public domain but experts say it is capable of triggering radioactive ocean swells to render coastal cities uninhabitable, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Putin last week held a nuclear launch drill and on Sunday announced that Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable weapon Moscow says can pierce any defence shield.
The ongoing war in Ukraine is creating “significant risks” to the U.S. economy and is costing American firms billions in lost opportunities, a report by influential economists has warned.
The Center for Freedom and Prosperity paper by Daniel J. Mitchell and Robert O’Quinn also claims that the continuation of the conflict threatens the U.S. dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency.
Russia and China want to end this so-called “exorbitant privilege” that sees most countries use the dollar for international trade and are using the war and trade tensions to undermine America’s position, the report argues.
The Independent’s Political Editor David Maddox reports:
Russia has attacked Ukraine with ground-launched 9M729 cruise missiles, whose secret development previously led to Donald Trump to abandon a nuclear arms control pact in his first term as President in 2019.
The accusations were made by Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha during a Reuters investigation, and mark the first confirmation that the weapons have been used by Russia anywhere in the world.
Russia has fired the missile at Ukraine a total of 23 times since August, a senior Ukrainian official told the news agency. It recorded two launches of the 9M729 by Russia in 2022, according to the source.
America has previously suggested that the missile is banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The country quit the treat following the development in 2019.
The Kremlin referred the allegations to the defence ministry, when asked on Friday. The ministry has yet to respond.
“Russia’s use of the INF-banned 9M729 against Ukraine in the past months demonstrates (President Vladimir) Putin’s disrespect to the United States and President Trump’s diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Sybiha said in written remarks.
The Kremlin has responded to reports that a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump has been cancelled.
The Financial Times reported on Friday that the US had cancelled the Budapest meeting after Russia took an unbending stance on its demands in relation to Ukraine.
The meeting had previously been postponed amid similar speculation.
On Friday, the Kremlin said that media reports should not be followed on the topic, insisting that only official statements from Russia’s foreign ministry and the US State Department should be taken seriously.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban will seek an exemption from US oil sanctions on Russia, due to high-dependency on its pipelines.
“Hungary is a landlocked country. We are dependent on those transport routes through which energy can reach Hungary. These are mostly pipelines,” Orban said.
“We have to make the Americans understand this peculiar situation, if we want them to allow exemptions from the American sanctions against Russia.”
He referred to Germany’s request for an exemption for one of its oil refineries, despite having access to the sea.
The United States is to resume nuclear weapons testing “immediately”, Donald Trump has announced, raising fears of renewed proliferation between the world’s two biggest stockpiles of atomic weaponry.
The American president has outwardly pursued a rapprochement in US-Russian relations since returning to the White House in January, but continued provocations from Moscow have pressed Washington to change its stance.
At least seven people, including a seven-year-old girl, was injured after Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and other targets yesterday, officials said.
Regional officials said two men were killed in the southeastern industrial city of Zaporizhzhia, and a seven-year-old girl from the central Vinnytsia region died in hospital from injuries sustained in the attacks.
The regional governor said a later drone strike on a village south of Zaporizhzhia killed one person and injured another.
Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko accused Moscow of targeting Ukrainian people and power supplies as the cold winter months approach.
“Its goal is to plunge Ukraine into darkness. Ours is to preserve the light,” Svyrydenko said on the Telegram app. “To stop the terror, we need more air defence systems, tougher sanctions, and maximum pressure on the aggressor,” she said.
Trump’s decision to resume nuclear weapons tests in the US is facing domestic criticism – and a stark warning it could lead to escalation.
Representative Dina Titus, a Democratic member of the US Congress from Nevada, condemned the move, saying on X: “I’ll be introducing legislation to put a stop to this.”
Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association think tank, said it would take the US at least 36 months to resume contained nuclear tests underground at the former test site in Nevada.
“Trump is misinformed and out of touch. The US has no technical, military or political reason to resume nuclear explosive testing for the first time since 1992,” he said on X.
Trump’s announcement, he added, could “trigger a chain reaction of nuclear testing by US adversaries, and blow apart the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”
Europe’s Nato allies have been shaken by Russian provocations on the bloc’s eastern frontier in recent months, reporting a string of drone incursions and scrambling jets to shadow aircraft flying over the Baltic.
Concern has mounted since September, when nearly two dozen drones crossed over into Poland amid a large-scale Russian drone attack on Ukraine. Days later, three Russian military jets violated Estonia’s airspace for 12 minutes.
Subsequent activity near the border has forced European countries to close airports and borders, and to reconsider how equipped they are to deal with foreign intrusions.
Analysts say that Russia is deliberately provoking Nato to see how it reacts, gathering information that might be useful when it decides the time is right to make a move against an alliance member.
The United States has cancelled a planned Budapest summit between president Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin following Russia’s firm stance on hardline demands regarding Ukraine, the Financial Times reported today.
The decision came after a tense call between the two countries’ top diplomats, the Financial Times said.
The intended summit between Trump and Putin was put on hold on last week after Moscow refused to budge on its red lines for ending the war in Ukraine.
Trump said on Tuesday that he did not want to have a “wasted meeting” with Putin after officials concluded that the gap between the two sides was two big to begin negotiations.
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