WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. intelligence assessment has concluded that Russia may use its lethal new intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine again in “coming days,” a U.S. official said Wednesday.

The experimental Oreshnik missile is seen by U.S. officials more as an attempt at intimidation than a game-changer on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information.

The official said Russia has only a handful of the missiles and that they carry a smaller warhead than other missiles that Russia has regularly launched at Ukraine.

Russia first fired the the weapon in a Nov. 21 missile attack against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Surveillance camera video of the strike showed huge fireballs piercing the darkness and slammed into the ground at astonishing speed.

Within hours of the attack on the military facility, Russian President Vladimir Putin took the rare step of speaking on national TV to boast about the new, hypersonic missile. He warned the West that its next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.

The attack came two days after Putin signed a revised version of Russia’s nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons. The doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.

That strike also came soon after President Joe Biden agreed to loosened restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American made longer-range weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.

“We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities,” Putin said at the time.

The Pentagon said the Oreshnik was an experimental type of intermediate-range ballistic missile, or IRBM, based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. The attack marked the first time such a weapon was used in a war.

Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles). Such weapons were banned under a Soviet-era treaty that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is pushing Putin to act to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine, describing it as part of his active efforts as president-elect to end the war.

“Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness,” Trump wrote on social media last weekend, referring to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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South Korea’s former defense minister, Kim Yong Hyun, attempted suicide while in detention over the president’s martial law declaration before officials stopped him.

This, as police raided President Yoon Suk Yeol’s office Wednesday amid the investigation into the president’s declaration.

The main liberal opposition Democratic Party plans to hold a second impeachment vote against Yoon on Saturday for his declaration to impose martial law after the first impeachment attempt failed last weekend.

Shin Yong Hae, commissioner general of the Korea Correctional Service, told lawmakers Wednesday at a parliament committee meeting that Kim attempted to kill himself overnight at a detention center in the capital of Seoul but that the attempt to end his life was unsuccessful after officials stopped him.

SOUTH KOREA IMPOSES A TRAVEL BAN ON PRESIDENT YOON OVER MARTIAL LAW DECLARATION

Kim is listed in a stable condition.

Justice Minister Park Sung Jae also confirmed Kim’s failed suicide attempt during the parliament committee meeting.

Kim was detained early Wednesday after a Seoul court approved a warrant for his arrest on allegations of playing a key role in a rebellion and committing abuse of power. Kim was the first person formally arrested over the president’s Dec. 3 martial law decree.

A close associate of Yoon, Kim is accused of recommending martial law to the president and sending troops to the National Assembly to block lawmakers from voting on the motion. Lawmakers eventually managed to enter a parliament chamber, where they unanimously rejected Yoon’s decree, forcing it to be lifted just hours after it was declared.

Prosecutors have up to 20 days to decide whether to indict Kim in the case.

Cho Ji Ho, commissioner general of the National Police Agency, and Kim Bong-sik, head of the metropolitan police agency of Seoul, were detained over their actions during martial law on allegations of deploying police forces to the National Assembly to block lawmakers from voting.

SOUTH KOREA’S PRESIDENT YOON SURVIVES IMPEACHMENT ATTEMPT AFTER HIS PARTY BOYCOTTS VOTE

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks at the presidential office in Seoul, South Korea, Saturday, Dec. 7, 2024. (AP)

The country’s main law enforcement agencies are centering on whether Yoon, Kim and others involved in the martial law decree committed the crime of rebellion, for which a conviction carries a maximum sentence of death.

Yoon, a conservative, apologized on Saturday for the martial law declaration, saying he would not seek to avoid legal or political responsibility for the motion. He also said he would leave it to his party to lead the country through its political turmoil, “including matters related to my term in office.”

In declaring martial law, Yoon said he wanted to rebuild the country by eliminating “shameless North Korea followers and anti-state forces,” a criticism of his liberal rivals who control parliament.

Opposition parties and many experts say the martial law decree was unconstitutional. This was the first time martial law was imposed in South Korea in more than 40 years.

During a parliamentary hearing Tuesday, Kwak Jong-keun, commander of the Army Special Warfare Command whose troops were sent to parliament, testified that Yoon called him and requested that troops deployed at parliament “quickly destroy the door and drag out the lawmakers who are inside.”

Kwak said he did not follow Yoon’s order.

Participants gather to stage a rally demanding South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s impeachment, in front of the headquarters of the ruling People Power Party in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2024. (AP)

Senior officer Kim Dae-woo of the military’s counterintelligence agency said at the same hearing that his commander, Yeo In-hyung, asked him if an army bunker in Seoul had space to detain politicians and other figures after martial law was declared. Yeo is considered a close associate of Kim.

If Yoon is impeached, his powers will be suspended until the Constitutional Court decides whether to remove him from office. Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, the second in command in the South Korean government, would take over his presidential responsibilities.

Should the president be removed, an election to replace him must be held within 60 days.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

EXPLAINER

Online self-publishing platform Substack has removed a post purportedly by Luigi Mangione, chief suspect in the murder of CEO Brian Thompson.

Luigi Mangione, the suspect charged with murder in UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s December 4 shooting death, left a handwritten document explaining his motivation, New York City police officials said.

Police had not released the document to the public as of December 10. But some X users were sharing what they said was a manifesto Mangione published on Substack, a subscription-based platform for online content creators.

“This is allegedly Luigi’s manifesto,” a December 9 X post with more than five million views said. The post shared four screenshots of text from a Substack post with the headline “The Allopathic Complex and Its Consequences” and the subhead “Luigi Mangione’s last words”.

The Substack article was dated December 9, the day Mangione was arrested at an Altoona, Pennsylvania, McDonald’s. “The second amendment means I am my own chief executive and commander in chief of my own military,” it said. “I authorise my own act of self-defence in response to a hostile entity making war on me and my family.”

We found other social media posts sharing the same images or language as the blog post and saying Mangione had written them.

But he did not write them. Substack removed the post “for violating Substack’s Content Guidelines, which prohibit impersonation”, a company spokesperson told PolitiFact in an emailed statement.

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on December 9 that police had found a handwritten document when they arrested Mangione “that speaks to both his motivation and mindset”. As of December 10, authorities had not offered more information about its contents.

The New York Times reported on the three-page document, citing an internal police report it obtained. Mangione described the act as a “symbolic takedown” of the healthcare industry, citing “alleged corruption and ‘power games’”.

None of that language appeared in the Substack post being shared online as Mangione’s manifesto.

PolitiFact reviewed reports about the document by The New York Times, CNN, New York Post or ABC News, all outlets that said they had reviewed the message or had it described to them by law enforcement sources. None of the reports included mention of the Second Amendment. PolitiFact has not obtained a copy.

We rate claims that Mangione wrote the Substack article as False.