It began with a peace move nobody wanted and ended with an experimental missile strike so rare in war Moscow gave a 30-minute heads-up to Washington.

Donald Tusk said the war was taking on “dramatic proportions” with the threat of global conflict “serious and real”. It comes after Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IBRM) at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday.

The war in Ukraine is entering a “decisive phase”, with Vladimir Putin ’s launch of a new ballistic missile showing that the threat of global conflict is “serious and real”, Poland’s prime minister has said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the conflict in Ukraine had characteristics of a "global" war and did not rule out strikes on Western countries.

In an address, Vladimir Putin announced retaliation for Ukraine's use of weapons received from Western partners. Conversely, Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine,

The Russian President has warned that he is prepared to use the intermediate range missile again against the country's enemies.