Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use new Oreshnik hypersonic missile to attack "decision-making centres" in Kyiv in response to Ukraine's firing of Western missiles at Russian territory.

Russia so far has not struck Ukrainian government ministries, parliament or the president's office in the course of the 33-month war.

Kyiv is heavily protected by air defences, but Putin says the Oreshnik, which Russia fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted — a claim greeted with scepticism by Western experts.

"Of course, we will respond to the ongoing strikes on Russian territory with long-range Western-made missiles, as has already been said, including by possibly continuing to test the Oreshnik in combat conditions, as was done on November 21," Mr Putin told leaders of a security alliance of ex-Soviet countries at a summit in Kazakhstan.

"At present, the Ministry of Defence and the General Staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory. These could be military facilities, defence and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centres in Kyiv," he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced Mr Putin's "promotion" of the Oreshnik as a tactic to disrupt attempts to end the war, particularly by US President-elect Donald Trump.

"He can go on wielding his Oreshnik only to thwart the efforts of President Trump which are sure to follow his inauguration. Putin wants to escalate the situation to such an extent so that President Trump's attempts will fail. So that he cannot end the war."

Mr Putin said a massive Russian overnight attack on Ukraine was also a response to Kyiv's use of US ATACMS ballistic missiles.

That attack on Ukraine's energy sector left at least 1 million people across three western regions without power.

Mr Zelenskyy said Russia used cruise missiles with cluster munitions in the attack, something he called a "despicable escalation".

US President Joe Biden condemned them as "outrageous".

Mr Zelenskyy also said he was speaking to Western leaders, including NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, to devise a response to "Russia's attempt to make the situation more unbearable and drag out the war".

Drone attacks continue

In the hours following Russia's massive attack, fragments from downed Russian drones struck buildings in two Kyiv districts and injured one person late on Thursday, officials said.

Emergency services, in a post on the Telegram messaging app, showed pictures of rubble strewn about inside and outside a paediatric clinic in the city's Dniprovskyi district on the east bank of the Dnipro River.

Fire broke out at the medical facility, the head of the city's military administration Serhiy Popko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Mr Popko warned residents to remain in shelters with an air raid alert still in effect.

A security guard at the facility was taken to hospital. Adjacent buildings also suffered damage.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said drone fragments had struck an infrastructure site in the Sviatoshynskyi district on the west bank of the river.

An air raid alert remained in effect in the capital more than an hour after it was declared.

Meanwhile Russian air defences destroyed or downed 30 Ukrainian drones in southern Rostov region early on Friday, Regional Governor Yuri Slyusar said.

Mr Slyusar, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said some private homes in two villages had sustained some damage, but there were no casualties.

'Direct involvement' of West

Russia says Ukraine fired ATACMS into western Russia for the first time on November 19, prompting it to respond two days later by firing the Oreshnik, a new intermediate-range missile, at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.

Since then, Russia says Ukraine fired more ATACMS at its Kursk region on November 23 and 25 and struck Russia with British Storm Shadow cruise missiles too, after the United States and Britain agreed for the first time to allow Kyiv to strike deep inside Russian territory with these weapons.

Mr Putin reiterated in his summit remarks that this, from Moscow's viewpoint, meant the "direct involvement" of the West in an armed conflict with Russia.

Mr Putin said Russia's production of advanced missile systems exceeds that of the NATO military alliance by 10 times, and that Moscow planned to ramp up production.

He said Russia had "several" Oreshniks ready to use — consistent with comments from US military officials last week that the new missile was experimental and Russia likely possessed only a handful of them.

Mr Putin, for the second time in less than a week, boasted that the Oreshnik was comparable to a nuclear weapon in terms of its destructive power and would atomise everything at the point of impact — but he said it would not carry a nuclear warhead or spread radioactive contamination.

Western security experts say the missile, like many others in Russia's arsenal, could be fitted with a nuclear warhead.

Ukraine said the Oreshnik fired on November 21 reached a top speed of 13,600 kilometres per hour but sources said it carried dummy warheads, not live explosives.

Tensions between the warring sides have risen sharply with the missile exchanges and Mr Putin last week updated Russia's nuclear doctrine to extend the list of scenarios that might prompt it to launch a nuclear weapon.

But five sources familiar with US intelligence told Reuters that the US decision to allow Ukraine to fire American weapons deeper into Russia has not increased the risk of a nuclear attack — something they said was still unlikely.

Reuters