Ukraine-Russia war latest: Moscow firing ‘secret’ missiles while Trump and Putin threaten to ramp up nuclear testing

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 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.”

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.

Russian western city of Oryol is restricting supply of heat and hot water after Ukrainian drones hit a pipeline at a local power plant today, local authorities said.

“It will be necessary to limit the heat and hot water supply to buildings in the Sovetsky, Zheleznodorozhny and Severny districts of the city of Oryol,” the governor of the Oryol region, Andrey Klychkov, wrote on social media.

Both Ukraine and Russia have intensified attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure in the past several weeks as peace talks hit a dead end.

Separately, Russia’s defence ministry said its forces shot down 130 Ukrainian drones overnight, mainly over the western regions as well as the Yaroslavl and Moscow regions.

Local authorities also said infrastructure was hit near the city of Vladimir, while a kindergarten in Yaroslavl, some 280 km (175 miles) northeast of Moscow, has been closed following a drone attack.