Russia this morning threatened to strike US air bases in Poland with ‘advanced weapons’ hours after it reportedly launched an intercontinental ballistic missile as part of a brutal barrage of targets across Ukraine.

Moscow said the opening of a new US ballistic missile defence base in Redzikowo near the Baltic coast will ‘increase the overall level of nuclear danger’, adding it had been added to a list of possible targets for Russia.

The facility, opened on November 13, forms part of a broader NATO missile shield called ‘Aegis Ashore’ designed to intercept short- and intermediate-range ballistic weapons. ‘This is another frankly provocative step in a series of deeply destabilising actions by the Americans and their allies,’ Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said of the airbase’s unveiling.

‘(The base) has been added to the list of priority targets for potential destruction which, if necessary, can be executed with a wide range of advanced weapons,’ she concluded. 

Her statement came minutes after Ukraine’s air force reported that an ICBM had been fired from a base in Russia‘s southern Astrakhan region on the Caspian Sea early this morning. 

Russian authorities have not yet confirmed the launch, but it would be the first time such a powerful missile has been deployed in the war.The alleged strike comes after Ukraine used US ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles to demolish targets inside Russia following approval by Sir Keir Starmer this week – something Moscow had warned for months would be seen as a major escalation. 

The air force did not specify which ICBM had been fired, but its launch comes mere hours after a Russian military analyst said Moscow‘s forces could unleash its fearsome RS-26 ‘Frontier’ missile in retaliation for the Storm Shadow strikes. 

The Frontier missile is a nuclear-capable weapon weighing roughly 36 tonnes with a range of up to 3,600 miles.

It has never before been used in combat, but analysts said it could be deployed with a conventional warhead in a strike that Ukraine’s air defences would be powerless to intercept. 

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