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Putin boasts of ‘unique’ missile while dressed up in combat fatigues for meeting with generals
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Russian president Vladimir Putin said his country has tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, which he says can “pierce any defence shield”.
The 9M730 Burevestnik, dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by Nato, is “invincible” to current and future missile defences, Moscow said, adding that it has an almost unlimited range and unpredictable flight path.
“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” said Putin, dressed in camouflage fatigues at a meeting with generals overseeing the war in Ukraine, in remarks released yesterday, claiming its “crucial testing” had been concluded.
Russia‘s top general Valery Gerasimov told Putin that the missile travelled 14,000 km and was in the air for about 15 hours when it was tested on 21 October.
Meanwhile, Moscow was forced to close two airports overnight as Russian air defences responded to a major Ukrainian drone attack.
In the Bryansk region, one person was killed and five others were injured when a Ukrainian drone struck a minibus. Russia said it downed almost 200 drones, including 34 targeting its capital.
Russia has reportedly tested a new nuclear-capable and powered cruise missile, which president Vladimir Putin claims is designed to confound existing defences, moving closer to its military deployment.
– The 9M730 Burevestnik, whose name translates as “storm petrel”, is a ground-launched, low-flying cruise missile that is not only capable of carrying a nuclear warhead but is also nuclear-powered. Nato refers to it as the SSC-X-9 Skyfall.
– Putin, who first revealed the project in March 2018, has said it has an unlimited range and can evade US missile defences. But some Western experts have questioned its strategic value, saying it won’t add capabilities that Moscow does not already have, and may disgorge radiation along its flight path.
Russian air defence systems destroyed 193 Ukrainian drones overnight, officials said.
These included 34 that targeted Moscow and 47 over the Bryansk region where one person was killed and five others were injured, Russian authorities said today.
The drones over Moscow were downed within a span of six hours, starting at just before 10pm last night Moscow time (1900 GMT), mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
The Russian defence ministry said in its daily report on Telegram that in addition to the drones destroyed over Moscow and the Bryansk region, Russian systems downed drones over 11 other regions, chiefly in the country’s west and south.
There were no reports of damage in Moscow, but Russia rarely discloses the full scale of damages inflicted by Ukrainian strikes inside its territory unless civilians or civilian objects are involved.
Russian aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said that two of Moscow’s four airports, the Domodedovo airport and the smaller Zhukovsky airport, were shut for about 2.5 hours from 2240 GMT to ensure air safety.
Ramzan darts about his garage workshop with gleeful enthusiasm, showing off a small blue mortar bomb from “Holland or Poland”, a whopping thin-tailed, bulging-headed shell from America, Ukrainian bespoke high-explosive packed grenades and even an anti-tank mine – all for dropping on the heads of Russians.
A former infantry soldier, he has been at war for three years and says he misses the thrill of fighting up close, but, as the armourer for a four-man drone team flying an unmanned bomber in the National Guard’s Typhoon drone unit: “This is the best way to kill Russians.”In a war of constant frontline improvisation, workshops like Ramzan’s garage – where he makes his own detonators and devises new types of incendiary bombs – have taken on the value of billion-pound industrial-military research centres in Nato countries.
Drone war was pioneered by self-funded Ukrainian soldiers adapting civilian toys to mortal effect. Kyiv now has the capacity to produce drones by the million, but on the front lines the model remains a killer startup.
Sam Kiley joins the Ukrainian infantry near Zaporizhzhia:
A Ukrainian drone hit a minibus in the Bryansk region, killing the driver and injuring five people, the governor of the southwestern Russian region bordering Ukraine said this morning.
All those injured were taken to a local hospital, the governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said on his Telegram channel.
Intelligence analysts inside the Trump administration were reportedly divided over whether Vladimir Putin was sincerely interested in negotiating an end to the Ukraine war.
Ahead of a controversial August summit in Alaska between Trump and Putin, the State Department’s internal intelligence agency took a more dim view of the question than other sectors of the administration, warning the president of Putin’s reluctance to end the conflict in assessments and presidential briefings, The Wall Street Journal reports.
“We kept standing firm,” John Williams, who resigned earlier this year from his post as director of the State Department’s Russia-Eurasia analysis in the intelligence bureau, told the paper. “We didn’t see that [Putin] had incentive to negotiate an end to the war.”
Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has said that Ukraine is concerned about the toll the war could take on its population and economy if it were to stretch on for longer than a few more years.
“I have no doubts Ukraine will survive as an independent state,” Tusk told the Sunday Times. “Now the main question is how many victims we will see. President Zelensky told me [on Thursday] that he hopes that the war will not last ten years, but that Ukraine is ready to fight for another two, three years.”
Russian air defence systems destroyed 34 Ukrainian drones that targeted Moscow through repeated attacks overnight and forced a temporary closure of two of the city’s four airports, Russian authorities said this morning.
The drones were downed within a span of six hours, starting at just before 10pm on Sunday Moscow time (1900 GMT), the mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin said.
Russian aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said the Domodedovo airport and the smaller Zhukovsky airport were shut for about two and a half hours from 2240 GMT to ensure air safety.
In the Tula region, which borders the Moscow region to the north, 24 drones were destroyed in the early hours today, regional governor Dmitry Miliyaev said on Telegram.
Russia has suggested it is still open to a leaders’ summit between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, which the US president appeared to give up on last week.
“Presidents cannot meet for the sake of meeting, they cannot just waste their time, and they are open about that. That’s why they instructed (Russian foreign minister Sergei) Lavrov and (US secretary of state Marco) Rubio to prepare this process. The process is complicated,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told state TV Kremlin correspondent Pavel Zarubin.
Peskov also commented on sanctions imposed by the US on Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft, calling them “an unfriendly step”, but said that Russia seeks to build friendly relations with all countries, including the US.
“Despite the various nuances voiced by the president of the United States, we must still be oriented towards our interests. Our interests are to build good relations with all countries, including the United States,” said Peskov, a close ally of the Russian president.
“Of course, the actions that were taken this week were an unfriendly step. They have indeed damaged the prospects for resuscitating our relations. But that does not mean that we should abandon these aspirations. We should do what is favourable to us,” Peskov said.
At least three people were killed after Russia targeted Ukraine’s capital with drones, officials said.
At least 29 people were wounded, seven of them children, in the second consecutive nighttime attack on Kyiv to claim civilian lives.
Ukraine’s interior minister Ihor Klymenko said a 19-year-old woman and her 46-year-old mother were among the killed.
Russian drones caused fires in two residential buildings in the capital’s Desnianskyi district. Emergency crews evacuated civilians from a nine-story and a 16-story building, put out flames and cleared the rubble.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 101 drones overnight into Sunday, according to Ukraine’s air force, of which 90 were shot down and neutralised. Five drones hit four locations and drone debris fell on five other places, the statement said.
At least two airports in Moscow were shut down as Russia engaged its air defence systems overnight to repel Ukrainian drone attacks, officials said.
Russian aviation watchdog Rosaviatsiya said that the large Domodedovo airport and the smaller Zhukovsky airport were closed to ensure air safety, starting at 2240 GMT.
Within a span of five hours, starting at just before 10pm last night Moscow time, Russian defence units downed 28 drones, said Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
The information on any potential damage was not immediately clear.
Russia’s defence ministry rarely discloses the full scale of damages inflicted by Ukrainian strikes inside its territory unless civilian objects are involved.
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