World
Putin mulls striking Kyiv with new hypersonic missile that can reportedly reach US West Coast
Following an overnight missile and drone attack by Russia targeting Ukraine’s key energy infrastructure, Russian President Vladimir Putin now says that government buildings in Kyiv could be targeted next using a new hypersonic missile that could also potentially reach the U.S.
Russian attacks have not so far struck “decision-making centers” in the Ukrainian capital as Kyiv is heavily protected by air defenses. But Putin says Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile, which it fired for the first time at a Ukrainian city last week, is incapable of being intercepted.
Russia fired the Oreshnik at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21, striking a weapons production plant. This was in retaliation against Ukrainian strikes on a Russian military facility in Bryansk two days earlier with U.S. made long-range missiles called ATACMS, after President Biden had given Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy permission to do so.
RUSSIA LAUNCHES ANOTHER LARGE MISSILE, DRONE ATTACK ON UKRAINE’S ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE
Fragments of a rocket that struck Dnipro on Nov. 21 are seen at a center for forensic analysis at an undisclosed location in Ukraine on Nov. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, main, Gavriil Grigorov / POOL / AFP, right.)
Russia says Ukraine fired more ATACMS at its Kursk region on Nov. 23 and Nov. 25.
“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,” Putin told a meeting of a security alliance of ex-Soviet countries in Kazakhstan.
“At present, the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff are selecting targets to hit on Ukrainian territory. These could be military facilities, defense and industrial enterprises, or decision-making centers in Kyiv,” he said.
The instrumentations of the Oreshnik missile – its sensors, electronics, data acquisition capabilities – are those of the Rubezh, a Russian solid-fueled intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM). With its flight capability of between 310 miles and 3,100 miles – just 310 miles below the standard low limit of an ICBM – the Oreshnik can target most of Europe and the West Coast of the United States. After a launch, such a missile could probably hit Britain in 20 minutes and Poland in 12 minutes.
The Oreshnik can be outfitted with a non-nuclear or nuclear warhead. And it is nearly impossible to intercept by existing missile defense systems because it is designed to fly at hypersonic speeds, reaching Mach 11.
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 further.
His plans to increase production and ongoing strikes mean the conflict – which has already passed 1,000 days – shows no signs of abating.
Russia unleashed a massive aerial drone and missile attack on Ukraine on Thursday targeting the country’s key energy infrastructure, leaving more than a million households without power in the west, south and center of the country, Ukrainian officials said.
RUSSIA LAUNCHES RECORD NUMBER OF DRONES IN NEW ATTACK
Firefighters put out a fire caused by a Russian drone and missile attack. (Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy via X)
The attack consisted of firing nearly 200 missiles and drones with explosions being reported in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, Lutsk and many other cities in central and western Ukraine.
The operation was Russia’s second major aerial attack on Ukraine’s power grid in less than two weeks, with President Vladimir Putin saying on Thursday that the attack was a response to Kyiv’s attacks on Russian regions using longer-range American missiles.
The attack has raised fears in Ukraine that Russia is looking to cripple its energy infrastructure before the winter cold starts to bite and dampen Ukrainian spirits about the outcome of the war.
Zelenskyy said that the attack was a “vile escalation” and that Kalibr cruise missiles with cluster munitions were used to deliberately target civilian infrastructure.
“The use of these cluster elements significantly complicates the work of our rescuers and power engineers in mitigating the damage, marking yet another vile escalation in Russia’s terrorist tactics,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
He urged Western countries to deliver on promised air defense weaponry. Ukrainian officials in the past have grumbled that military aid is slow to arrive.
The Thursday attack came just hours after President-elect Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg for a potential new post focused on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
The attack came just hours after President-elect Trump nominated Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg for a potential new post focused on ending the Russia-Ukraine war. Trump has created the position of special envoy for the Ukraine conflict,
Three sources familiar told Reuters that Kellogg presented Trump with a plan to end the conflict, and in April co-authored a research document that presented the idea of using weapons supplied to Ukraine as leverage for armistice negotiations with Russia.
Rebekah Koffler, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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By Alisa Shodiyev Kaff
June 11, 2026
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U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey resigned Thursday after clashing with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government over military spending, dealing the British leader a setback weeks before a critical NATO summit to include President Donald Trump.
Healey’s departure stemmed from a dispute over the delayed Defense Investment Plan (DIP) — the government’s long-promised roadmap for military investment and readiness — and as NATO allies face renewed pressure from Trump to boost defense spending.
“John Healey’s resignation is a seismic moment for the government and the Ministry of Defense,” Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Senior Associate Fellow Ed Arnold told Fox News Digital.
“For the government, it creates a sequence of political headaches in terms of a replacement, and trying to get the Defense Investment Plan published.”
BRITISH PM KEIR STARMER MOVES UK MILITARY INTO ‘WAR-FIGHTING READINESS’
Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey speaks with British and Norwegian naval personnel at the unveiling of the Atlantic Bastion programme in Portsmouth, Britain, on Dec. 4, 2025. (Peter Nicholls/Pool via Reuters)
Healey had been in intense, late-stage negotiations with Starmer and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves over the scale and timelines of the DIP.
Starmer reportedly refused to set out a timeline to reach 3.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) on defense by 2035 — a promise he made to Trump at last year’s NATO summit — and would not commit to a firm date for reaching 3%.
Instead, Starmer offered Healey a deal to spend 2.68% of GDP on defense by 2030, up only marginally from 2.6% next year, Reuters reported.
“You have been unable, and the Treasury has been unwilling, to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country,” Healey wrote to Starmer in his resignation letter, warning that the financial constraints would “make the country less safe,” the outlet reported.
NATO CHIEF URGES MEMBERS TO ‘TURBOCHARGE’ DEFENSE PRODUCTION AS HE PAINTS PICTURE OF A WORLD BOUND FOR WAR
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, U.S. President Donald Trump and Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer pose with NATO country leaders during the NATO Heads of State and Government summit in The Hague, Netherlands, on June 25, 2025. (Ben Stansall/Pool via Reuters)
“If the delay to the Defense Investment Plan was already undermining the government’s credibility on defense, John Healey’s resignation has blown a hole in its side,” Professor Kevin Rowlands of the RUSI defense and security think tank told Fox News Digital.
“The immediate consequence is not just political embarrassment for No. 10, but a significant loss of planning certainty at a time when the British Armed Forces, the Ministry of Defense, and industry really need clarity on what will be funded, and when,” he added.
The political fallout is expected to reverberate across the Atlantic, where Washington has increased pressure on European allies to fulfill their defense obligations. Trump has frequently criticized NATO alliance members as “free riders.”
On June 3, Secretary of State Marco Rubio also told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that the upcoming Ankara summit would be the “most important meeting” in NATO’s history because there are some things “that need to be cleared up and fixed.”
He added, “The United States is still in the NATO alliance, and we’ll be there.”
TRUMP EFFECT FORCES GERMANY TO REPRIORITIZE DEFENSE AS NATION PLAYS CATCH-UP IN MILITARY SPENDING
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer increased the military presence in Cyprus following an Iranian drone strike early Monday, Feb. 24, 2026. (Kin Cheung / POOL / AFP via Getty Images))
However, U.S. officials have made it clear that patience is wearing thin.
“Ahead of next month’s NATO summit, POTUS has been clear: Allies must fulfil their commitment to spending 5% of GDP on defense,” U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker posted on X this week.
Furthermore, a U.S. official noted that a U.K. funding package far lower than 18 billion pounds ($23 billion) would send a highly “negative” signal to Trump ahead of the Ankara meeting, according to The Times.
Starmer has pledged to lift spending to 3% in the next Parliament but Healey’s exit has exposed that the current strategy leaves the U.K. lagging behind key allies. By comparison, Germany plans to spend 3.7% of its GDP on defense by 2030.
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“Healey knows the threats we face, he knows the capabilities and shortfalls the armed forces have, and if he believes that the financial settlement is not enough to keep the country safe — to the extent that he cannot honorably stay in post — then we are in trouble,” Rowlands added.
“While the impact will mainly be felt on Whitehall, the international implications are severe with a NATO summit just three weeks away,” Arnold noted.
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After two years of strong performance driven by a shift to a war economy, Russia’s economic situation is weakening, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told Euronews.
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And although the IMF raised its forecast for Russia’s 2026 growth in its April outlook from 0.8% to 1.1%, Georgieva told Euronews this did not reflect the full picture of the economic weakening.
“The higher oil prices do give a breather to Russia,” Georgieva said, arguing the hike cannot offset the bigger hit to Russia’s economy.
“They have depleted their buffers dramatically,” Georgieva said. The oil price windfall “appears to be used to rebuild buffers rather than to inject more investment into the economy,” she explained.
“Growth has slowed down significantly. Now we are projecting 1%. Before the war, their potential growth was 1.6%,” Georgieva pointed out.
The IMF managing director also told Euronews that it is important to consider other economic indicators to better understand Russia’s current economic situation.
“Inflation is high. That means that interest rates are high, almost 15%.”
The IMF does not expect to see “material impact on growth in Russia,” Georgieva said. “It is a country whose medium (and) long-term prospects have worsened significantly.”
She listed three grounds on which the prospects have worsened. The first is losing people.
“A country that was in a demographic decline to begin with now lost so many young people for a terrible reason,” Georgieva explained.
The second factor is the sanctions, specifically the way they “bite a lot on the technology front.”
“What we see in the oil and gas sector in Russia, there is a tremendous problem with lack of technological renewal that is restricting the ability of the sector to expand,” she said.
And the third is the fact that “Russia lost standing.”
“That translates into many tangible and non-tangible losses. I mean, just think of the young Russians that could have built relations with Europeans and others and did not because of the war,” Georgieva stated.
“So, on the whole, Russia is coming crippled,” she concluded.
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