Vladimir Putin test-fired the “Oreshnik”, the Russian word for hazelnut tree, for the first time in combat on Thursday against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. He later boasted that it had been designed for a “decisive” strike on Britain – and added a chilling warning.

A U.S. official said Russia has a limited number of the missiles and that it cannot regularly deploy them on the battlefield.

Russia launched a new non-nuclear ballistic missile with medium range on Ukraine’s Dnipro region on Thursday, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said in a televised statement, marking another significant escalation in the 1,