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

Hours after the strike, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a TV address, said that Russia had launched a "new conventional intermediate-range" missile with the codename Oreshnik, meaning hazel tree in Russian.

Russia’s use of a new nuclear-capable hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine is not only escalating the war but lobbing an unmistakable threat at Europe and the West.

President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia will continue to test and start mass-producing the hypersonic ballistic missile that it fired at Ukraine Thursday.

This week's saber rattling has come during a period in which the war has passed 1,000 days and at a pivotal moment in the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv.