This past week has seen the most significant escalation in hostilities Ukraine has witnessed since Russia’s full-scale invasion and marks a new chapter in the nearly three-year war.

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. The past seven days have fundamentally changed Ukraine’s long conflict,

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.

Ukraine has been hit by a surge in Russian ballistic missile attacks, about a third of which used North Korean weapons that can only fly because they run on Western circuitry, obtained despite sanctions,

The United States believes that Russia fired a never-before-fielded intermediate-range ballistic missile on Thursday in its attack on Ukraine, an escalation that analysts say could have implications for European missile defense.

Russia on Thursday fired an experimental missile at Ukraine in a clear warning of its capabilities, officials from Western governments said, even as they pushed back against Ukrainian claims of a more provocative action by Moscow.