‘Another Example of Reckless Behavior From Russia’ – Ukraine at War Update for Nov. 22

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that, as a result of the West’s allowing Ukraine to use long-range missiles well within Russia, the war there will spread beyond its current borders, and hinted that European targets could be next.

He highlighted Moscow’s newest hypersonic missile which he said was used in an early morning attack on Dnipro.

“We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities,” Putin said. 

Kyiv immediately claimed that the weapon used in the Dnipro attack was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), with the sort of multiple warheads indicative of them. US intelligence officials disputed that claim, saying it was more likely a mid-range missile with that same kind of payload that can be replaced with nuclear warheads. It would have marked the first time an ICBM was launched in combat.

Putin said it was a new, hypersonic missile that Moscow had developed very recently, and that Russia was “testing, in combat conditions, one of the newest Russian... missile systems” named “Oreshnik,” or “hazelnut tree.” He confirmed that this intermediate-range, hypersonic missile could also carry nuclear payloads. Such mid-range missiles typically have a range of about about 3,400 miles (5,500 kilometers), putting most of Europe well within its arc. Putin claimed that this version can reach speeds of up to 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) per second.

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Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov told Russian state media that Moscow had informed Washington of the missile’s launch about half an hour before it was fired, via an automatic nuclear de-escalation hotline, AFP reported.

Western leaders are unmoved by Putin’s remarks or new missiles

After the attack, President Volodymyr Zelensky, said in an evening address that it is “necessary to urge Russia to a true peace, which is possible only through force, otherwise, there will be relentless Russian strikes, threats and destabilization, and not only against Ukraine.”

The US downplayed the geopolitical significance of the new missile strike. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Washington saw no need to modify the US nuclear posture in response, and an unnamed US official told AFP that Russia “likely possesses only a handful” of these new missiles.

She said that the Oreshnik strike would only speed up the deliveries of promised weapons to Ukraine:

“Many of these are air defense missiles have been delivered already, and deliveries of additional air defense missiles to Ukraine are ongoing,” Jean-Pierre told a White House briefing audience. “And so we’re going to continue to do that to make sure they’re strengthening their capabilities, including air defense and putting Ukraine in the best possible position on the battlefield.”

The Biden administration already has promised an additional 100 such missiles to Ukraine, as an add-on to the latest aid package.

No one was reported killed in the Dnipro air strikes, with two people injured by falling debris.

Nonetheless, a spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters, “It is another example of reckless behavior from Russia.”

Proposed US Defense chief under scrutiny for police report on sexual assault

On a day when President-elect Donald Trump saw the withdrawal of Matt Gaetz’s name for Attorney General because of an ethics probe into allegations that the congressman committed statutory rape, his pick for Secretary of Defense faced questions about a legal battle he had in 2017 over accusations of sexual assault.

According to the Monterey, California, police department, in the early morning hours of October 8, 2017, then-Fox News personality Pete Hegseth was accused by a hotel guest at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa, of forcing himself upon her and having non-consensual sex. The night before, Hegseth spoke at a convention of the California Federation of Republican Women at the hotel.

CNN broke the news on Thursday after it had received a copy of the police report, which contained testimony of guests that a highly intoxicated Hegseth and a guest identified anonymously as “Jane Doe” were causing a disturbance at the hotel pool that night. The alleged victim gave testimony that she suspected she had been drugged, and refused his sexual advances, but remembered Hegseth having sex with her, ejaculating on her torso, and then throwing her a towel, asking if she was OK.

Hegseth settled out of court, falsely claiming to reporters that he had been “cleared” of any wrongdoing. His nomination remains before the US Senate. The former Wall Street analyst and infantry officer has never been elected to public office and has almost no management experience in a major organization. The 44-year-old has spent the last 15 or so years of his career as a conservative political activist, with think tanks and with Fox News.

Gaetz, on the other hand, voluntarily withdrew his name on Thursday for the appointment to lead the Department of Justice because of building pressure around an ongoing House Ethics Committee investigation of allegations of involvement in a sex-trafficking group and having intercourse with a 17-year-old on a billiards table.

On Thursday night, Trump was slow to name a replacement appointee who could carry out the former president and convicted felon’s stated plans to largely dismantle the Justice Department. He settled on Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, who once dropped a fraud investigation into the sham Trump University after the former president gave $25,000 to her campaign.