Russian Ballistic Missile Strike a "Severe Escalation": Zelenskiy

(Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that a Russian attack on Ukraine with a new type of ballistic missile was a "clear and severe escalation" in the war and called for strong worldwide condemnation.

"This is a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war," Zelenskiy wrote on X, referring to a strike on the central city of Dnipro.

"The use of a ballistic missile against Ukraine today is yet more proof that Russia has no interest in peace."

"The world must respond," he wrote. "Right now, there is no strong reaction from the world."

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a television address, said Russia had responded to the use of U.S. and British missiles by Kyiv by firing a new kind of hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile at a Ukrainian military facility.

In his comments on X, Zelenskiy said Putin's acknowledgement of the use of the new weapon was another escalation in the war, now more than 1,000 days old, after the deployment of North Korean troops on Russian soil.

"Putin is not only prolonging the war — he is spitting in the face of those in the world who genuinely want peace to be restored," he wrote.

"The world must respond. Right now, there is no strong reaction from the world...A lack of tough reactions to Russia’s actions sends a message that such behavior is acceptable."

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Editing by Ron Popeski, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)