A Russian ICBM may or may not have hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in the early hours of Thursday. If the claim bears out, it would mark the first use of an ICBM in warfare, albeit with conventional warheads. At this writing, there is no confirmation of damage or casualties caused by the attack.

The sole source for identifying the weapon as an ICBM is the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The Ukrainians did not provide much detail on the strike, saying only that the missile had been launched from the Russian region of Astrakhan and was part of a volley aimed at Dnipro. The Russian Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had attacked Ukraine with a new class of missile. “All the parameters — speed, altitude — match those of an intercontinental ballistic missile,” he said. “All expert evaluations are underway.”

Western military officials, speaking on background, disagreed, identifying the weapon as an intermediate-range ballistic missile. “But it is a new type we have been tracking.”

The weapon, containing multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV), detonated over Dnipro at approximately 5 a.m. local time.

🇷🇺⚠️☢️🇺🇦⚡WW3 INFO – For the first time in human history, an ICBM was used in combat mode this morning by the Russian Missile Forces, after Ukraine used yesterday British-French-made Storm Shadow missiles on a Russian Command Post in the Kursk region.

World War III is spilling… pic.twitter.com/CDDgN816pZ

— Monitor𝕏 (@MonitorX99800) November 21, 2024

Further muddying the waters is the Russian response. No statement has been issued by either the Defense or Foreign Ministries, nor has an announcement appeared in TASS. When Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova gave her daily press briefing, she received a call from someone who could be heard telling her not to comment on potential ICBM use.

‼️ During the briefing, Zakharova received a call from the Kremlin and was instructed not to comment on the strike on the Ukrainian Yuzhmash (Southern Machine-Building Plant) with an intercontinental ballistic missile. pic.twitter.com/oq5ZXSENHW

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) November 21, 2024

Takeaways

If Russia was using this strike as an escalation signal, it seems that a press statement would have accompanied it.

For an ICBM to have been used, Russia would have had to have warned the US; otherwise, it could have been mistaken as a nuclear strike. The odds of that being kept quiet, particularly during a presidential transition period, seem small. So having US officials go out on a limb to label the missile as something other than an ICBM, if one was launched, makes no sense.

Russia routinely uses nuclear-capable cruise missiles fired from strategic bombers, so even if it is an ICBM, it doesn't represent a material step in escalation beyond the emotive effect.

There is no doubt Russia is not happy about having its supply depots, factories, and troop concentrations hit by ATACMS (see Ukraine Launches First Missile Attack Using New Authority From Biden, Putin Responds in Typical Putin Way) and British Storm Shadow missiles (Ukraine fires British Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for first time).

Right now, Vladimir Putin is doing a creditable imitation of Sheriff Bart escaping from the outraged townspeople in "Blazing Saddles." The only advantage his nuclear arsenal provides him is convincing the credulous, the simps, and Jake Sullivan that he "can" use it. In reality, using a nuclear weapon in Ukraine would create problems for Putin that even Donald Trump's negotiating skills could not solve.