The United States believes 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 defences.
Here’s what we know so far about the missile:
The US military said the Russian missile’s design was based on the design of Russia’s longer-range RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
The new missile was experimental and Russia likely possessed only a handful of them, officials said.
The Pentagon said the missile was fired with a conventional warhead but that Moscow could modify it if it wanted.
“It could be refitted to certainly carry different types of conventional or nuclear warheads,” Pentagon spokesperson, Sabrina Singh, said.
Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had earlier hinted that Russia would complete the development of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) system after Washington and Berlin agreed to deploy long-range US missiles in Germany from 2026.
“The RS-26 was always [a] prime candidate,” Lewis said.
Singh said the new variant of the missile was considered “experimental” by the Pentagon. “It’s the first time that we’ve seen it employed on the battlefield … So that’s why we consider it experimental.”
US and UK sources indicated that they believed the missile fired on Dnipro was an experimental nuclear-capable, IRBM, which has a theoretical range of below 3,420 miles (5,500km). That is enough to reach Europe from where it was fired in south-western Russia, but not the US.
Russia has sent air-defence missiles and other military technology to North Korea in return for the deployment of its troops to support the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine, intelligence officials in South Korea have said.
In a TV interview on Friday, South Korea’s top security adviser, Shin Won-sik, suggested the Kremlin had started to fulfil its side of a deal to provide the regime in Pyongyang with technology and aid as “payment” for the deployment of more than 10,000 North Korean troops to Ukraine.
“It has been identified that equipment and anti-aircraft missiles aimed at reinforcing Pyongyang’s vulnerable air-defence system have been delivered to North Korea,” Shin, the national security adviser to the South’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, told the broadcaster SBS.
Shin did not offer details of how intelligence officials had confirmed the arrival in North Korea of Russian military support, and North Korea and the Kremlin have not commented on his claims.
North Korea had also received “various forms of economic support” and may have acquired Russian technology for its troubled spy satellite programme, Shin said.
North Korea claimed it had put its first spy satellite into orbit in November last year after two failed attempts, but experts have questioned whether it is able to produce imagery that could be useful to the country’s military. Another satellite launch in May also ended in failure.
Experts believe North Korea agreed to send troops to the western Kursk border region in return for military technology, ranging from surveillance satellites to submarines, as well as possible security guarantees from Moscow.
When they met in Pyongyang in June, the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, signed a mutual aid agreement that obliged both countries to provide military assistance “without delay” in the case of an attack on the other.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) has spoken to a resident of Dnipro after Russia’s first launch of a nuclear-capable mid-range ballistic missile at the city of on Thursday.
Vladimir Riga, 66, was on his way to work when he saw “an explosion”. He said the attack damaged a rehabilitation centre and AFP saw workers boarding up the windows of the damaged building after the attack.
Asked if it marked a new turn in the conflict and if he feared an escalation, Riga said, “of course I am afraid. Anything can happen”.
New US sanctions on Moscow may shut down the only way European customers can pay for Russian gas, increase volatility on Russia’s FX market and push Moscow closer to Beijing’s orbit, Russian economists said on Friday, reports Reuters.
Washington imposed new sanctions on Russia’s Gazprombank on Thursday that prevent the state-controlled lender from handling any new energy-related transactions that touch the US financial system. The US also targeted about 50 other Russian banks and the Bank of Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).
Hungary and Slovakia, both of which have long-term contracts with Russian energy company Gazprom, are studying the changes, according to Reuters. Russian deputy energy minister, Pavel Sorokin, declined to comment when asked by Reuters if Gazprombank would continue receiving payments from European clients.
“EU payments for energy resources through Gazprombank will likely become impossible at the end of 2024,” Sinara Investment Bank analysts said, according to Reuters.
The sanctions included a wind-down period for transactions involving Gazprombank until 20 December and for those related to the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project in Russia’s far east until 28 June 2025.
The Kremlin said on Friday the sanctions were an attempt by Washington to hinder Russian gas exports, but a solution would be found. Gazprombank said the sanctions would not impact its banking operations, but did not respond to Reuter’s questions on gas payment solutions.
In March 2022, Moscow demanded that countries hostile to Russia pay for gas supplies under a scheme that involves the conversion of hard currency into roubles. Buyers could open two accounts at Gazprombank, one in roubles and one in foreign currency.
Now, they will need to find another intermediary.
The US has authorised transactions related to energy with certain exceptions for a dozen Russian financial institutions until 30 April 2025. Some analysts say Gazprombank could be added to that list, reports Reuters.
Sweden will not be intimidated by Russia’s provocations, defence minister Pal Jonson has said after president Vladimir Putin hinted at strikes on Western countries supplying weapons to Ukraine.
Jonson told reporters at a joint press conference in Stockholm with his Ukrainian counterpart Rustem Umerov:
The Russian escalation and provocation that we’ve been noticing recently is an attempt to scare us from supporting Ukraine, and that will fail. This will not happen.
Russian forces have taken control of the settlement of Novodmytrivka in eastern Ukraine‘s Donetsk region, the RIA state-owned news agency reported on Friday, citing the Defence Ministry.
The claim has not been independently verified.
In an intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said the key development that had changed the nature of the conflict to Ukraine‘s advantage had been Kyiv’s deployment of drones against military targets in Russia.
Over 1,000 days into the conflict, Russia’s Aerospace Forces, despite technological and numerical advantage have failed to gain air superiority over Ukraine.
In mid and late September Ukraine struck four Russian strategic ammunition depots hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine. The total tonnage of ammunition destroyed across the sites represents the largest loss of Russian and North Korean supplied ammunition during the war.
The attacks again highlight Russia’s inability to protect strategic military sites from Ukrainian UAV (Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle) attack.
Here are some of the latest images coming through from Ukraine and Russia:
Meanwhile, the UK’s foreign secretary has vowed to continue to “do everything that is necessary” to help Ukraine combat Russia.
David Lammy and his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot wrote in the i newspaper promising to continue to support Ukraine and put the country “in the best position to achieve a just and lasting peace”.
The two said:
By launching his illegal and unprovoked full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine 1,000 days ago this week, not only did Vladimir Putin accelerate the largest war on the European continent since the Second World War, he also sought to rewrite the international order.
The annihilation of the global architecture that has been the cornerstone of international peace and security for generations. All to justify his illegal and intolerable aggression against a sovereign European country.
The UK and France will not let him do so. Together with our allies, we will do everything that is necessary to put Ukraine in the best position to achieve a just and lasting peace.
The UK home secretary has said that “we will continue” to see “aggressive language” from Vladimir Putin after the Russian leader threatened to strike the UK, reports the PA news agency.
Yvette Cooper told Sky News that there has been an “aggressive, blustering tone” from Putin throughout the conflict, which she called “completely unacceptable”.
On Thursday, Russia used a new ballistic missile in Ukraine, which Putin said was in response to the UK and US allowing missiles they have supplied to Ukraine to be used to strike targets in Russia.
In a televised address, Putin said:
We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow their weapons to be used against our facilities.”
Asked about the Russian leader’s threat to use weapons against nations that allow their own weapons to be used against Russia, Cooper told Sky News:
Russia invaded a sovereign state.
We have seen the aggressive, blustering tone and response from Putin all the way through this, it’s completely unacceptable, and we will continue to see that sort of aggressive language.
We are clear that that sort of behaviour cannot be tolerated, and that’s why we have provided the support to Ukraine as they defend themselves against Putin’s aggression.”
As with other government ministers, Cooper also declined to confirm officially whether UK weapons had been used by Ukraine in Russia, saying:
I’m not going to comment on the detail of any individual defence operations.”
The UK is believed to have allowed its Storm Shadow missiles to be used by Ukrainian forces within the Kursk region of Russia, while the US has given permission for its Atacms weapons to be fired at targets in Russia
Putin confirmed Russia has tested the new intermediate-range weapon in an attack on Dnipro in response.
Recent events show that there is a real risk of a global conflict breaking out, Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Friday, after Russia fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile at a Ukrainian city.
“The war in the east is entering a decisive phase, we feel that the unknown is approaching,” Tusk told a teachers conference, reports Reuters.
Tusk added:
The conflict is taking on dramatic proportions. The last few dozen hours have shown that the threat is serious and real when it comes to global conflict.”
Poland, which borders Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, has been a leading voice calling for members of Nato to spend more on defence, and is itself allocating 4.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) to boosting its armed forces in 2025.
Russia said on Thursday that a new US ballistic missile defence base in northern Poland will lead to an increase in the overall level of nuclear danger, but Warsaw said “threats” from Moscow only strengthened the argument for Nato defences.
Kremlin says hypersonic missile strike on Ukraine was a warning to the west
The Kremlin said on Friday that a strike on Ukraine using a newly developed hypersonic ballistic missile was designed to warn the west that Moscow will respond to moves by the US and the UK to let Kyiv strike Russia with their missiles.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, was speaking a day after Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said Moscow had fired the new missile – the Oreshnik or ‘hazel tree’- at a Ukrainian military facility.
Peskov said Russia had not been obliged to warn the US about the strike, but had informed the US 30 minutes before the launch anyway. Putin remained open to dialogue, Peskov said.
Ukraine parliament scraps session over Russian missile strike threat
Ukraine’s parliament has cancelled Friday’s session, lawmakers said, citing the risk of a Russian missile attack on the district of Kyiv where government buildings are located.
“The hour of questions to the government has been cancelled,” Yevgenia Kravchuk, an MP from the ruling party told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Kravchuk said:
There are signals of an increased risk of attacks on the government district in the coming days.”
Like Chekhov’s gun coming off the wall in Act V, it was probably only a matter of time before Vladimir Putin launched an experimental, nuclear-capable ballistic missile into Ukraine. It is hardly a coincidence that his decision comes as the war approaches a likely endgame, with both sides jockeying for position ahead of negotiations in the shadow of Donald Trump.
Neither Ukraine nor Russia quite knows what Trump will do when he takes office in January. But the escalations taking place now will set a new status quo for the day he becomes president, at which point Trump’s options range from hard-nosed horse-trading to simply throwing Ukraine under the bus.
Ukrainian officials said this week that they simply do not know what the president-elect has planned for them. And with little idea of Trump’s intentions, they are focused on optimizing their battlefield position, seeking to hold a beachhead in Russia’s Kursk region and shore up the frontlines elsewhere across the battlefield to be in as strong a position as possible before the new US administration.
US officials, similarly unsure of what their new president will do, are keen to make Ukraine as self-sufficient as possible and to prepare their European partners to increase support to Ukraine after Biden’s departure. One way some of his administration officials have described the goal is to avoid handing Trump another Afghanistan, where the country’s military collapses as soon as US ceases to provide support. Most are pessimistic that Ukraine can continue the fight indefinitely, however.
In the final months of his term, Joe Biden offered Ukraine one thing it has been clamoring for: the right to use Atacms long-range missiles against targets inside Russia. He has also given Ukraine authorisation to use landmines and the right to send US military contractors in to fix the hardware Ukraine needs to stay in the fight.
Russian forces have “derailed” Ukraine’s entire military strategy for next year, Moscow’s defence minister said on Friday, after Russia struck Ukraine with an experimental hypersonic missile, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, announced the launch of the missile in a surprise address on Thursday, saying the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global” nature. The Kremlin leader also warned that Moscow felt “entitled” to hit military facilities in countries that allow Ukraine to use their weapons against Russia.
In a meeting with military commanders, Russian defence minister, Andrei Belousov, said Moscow’s advance had “accelerated” in Ukraine and “ground down” Kyiv’s best units. “We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Belousov said of the Ukrainian army, speaking in a video published by the Russian defence ministry, reports AFP.
Russian troops have been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing a string of small towns and villages because overstretched Ukrainian soldiers lack manpower and artillery.
Ukraine recently fired US and UK supplied longer-range missiles at Russian territory for the first time, ramping up already sky-high tensions over the conflict, which is nearly in its third year.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile, which he said proved Moscow “does not want peace”.
New Russian missile strike was 'terrible escalation', says Scholz
Russia’s use of an experimental hypersonic missile to hit Ukraine was a “terrible escalation” in the war, German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on Friday.
The deployment of the new weapon showed “how dangerous this war is”, Scholz said in a speech, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP). He added:
That (Russian President Vladimir) Putin has now also used a medium-range missile to strike Ukrainian territory is a terrible escalation.”
Russian drone attack on Sumy kills two and injures 12, local authorities say
A Russian drone attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two people and injured 12 on Friday morning, regional authorities said, according to Reuters.
Twelve apartment buildings, five private residences, a store and three cars were damaged after three drones attacked the city at about 5am local time (3am GMT), the national police said.
Volodymyr Artiukh, Sumy regional governor, said Russian forces had equipped drones with shrapnel for the attack on a densely populated area of the city, reports Reuters.
“This weapon is used … exclusively (to kill) people,” Artiukh said, pointing to scars on a damaged building. “Not for a facility, but in order to destroy more people.”
The video posted by Sumy regional military administration after the attack showed damaged cars and buildings with blown-out windows, according to Reuters.
Russia has pummelled the region and its critical infrastructure in deadly attacks over the past weeks. An overnight drone attack on Tuesday on the small town of Hlukhiv in the region killed 12 people, including a child.
On Sunday evening, a missile attack on Sumy killed 11 and injured 89 more people, in addition to leaving the region’s administrative centre without power.
Updated
China urges 'restraint' in Ukraine war after Russian hypersonic missile strike
China on Friday reiterated calls for “calm” and “restraint” by all parties in the Ukraine war after Russia confirmed it fired an experimental hypersonic ballistic missile, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire,” foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian, told a regular briefing.
Ukraine called Russia’s strike a major ramping up of the “scale and brutality” of the war by a “crazy neighbour”, while Kyiv’s main backer, the US, said that Moscow was to blame for escalating the conflict “at every turn”.
After the launch, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that the conflict in Ukraine had characteristics of a “global” war and did not rule out strikes on western countries.
In response, Beijing on Friday issued a call for calm. “China’s position on the Ukraine issue has been consistent and clear, advocating for resolving the crisis through political means and avoiding an escalation of the situation,” Lin said, according to AFP.
China presents itself as a neutral party in the Ukraine war and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the US and other western nations. But it remains a close political and economic ally of Russia and Nato members have called Beijing a “decisive enabler” of the war, which it has never condemned.
Updated
Nato and Ukraine to meet on Tuesday over Russian missile strike, say diplomats
Nato and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over Russia’s firing of an experimental hypersonic intermediate-range missile, diplomats said on Friday.
The meeting on Tuesday of the Nato-Ukraine council will happen on ambassadorial level. It was called by Kyiv after the strike on the city of Dnipro, officials told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Updated
Explainer: What is the Oreshnik ballistic missile?
Russian president Vladimir Putin said Russia had struck Ukraine with a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile in response to Kyiv’s use of US and UK missiles against Russia.
Reuters has this explainer on what the Oreshnik (hazel) is:
Putin said Oreshnik was a hypersonic ballistic missile. He said it travelled at 10 times the speed of sound and so could not be intercepted. Russian sources said the range was 5,000 km (3,100 miles).
It appears to have multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles: separate warheads able to hit different targets.
Anatoly Matviychuk, a Russian military expert, said it could carry six to eight conventional or nuclear warheads, and was probably already in service, according to Yuri Podolyaka, a prominent Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger.
The Pentagon said the missile that Russia fired was based on the RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). It said the US had been notified of the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had fired an ICBM at Dnipro, though the US said that was incorrect. ICBMs are defined as having a range greater than 5,500 km (3,400 miles).
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a Russian attack with a new type of ballistic missile was a “clear and severe escalation” and called for worldwide condemnation.
North Korea has likely received more than 1m barrels of oil from Russia over an eight-month period this year in breach of UN sanctions, according to an analysis of satellite imagery published on Friday by UK-based Open Source Centre and the BBC.
North Korean oil tankers have made more than 40 visits to Russia’s far eastern port of Vostochny since March, the report on the research group Open Source Centre’s website said, according to Reuters.
“Dozens of high-resolution satellite images, AIS (Automatic Identification System) data and imagery released by maritime patrol missions tasked with monitoring North Korea’s UN-sanctions busting activities show North Korean tankers repeatedly loading at an oil terminal at the Russian port of Vostochny,” the report said, adding that Russia’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
North Korea has continued to illicitly import refined petroleum products in violation of UN security council resolutions, according to the UNSC.
Earlier this year, the US and South Korea launched a new taskforce aimed at preventing North Korea from procuring illicit oil as a deadlock at the UNSC cast doubts over the future of international sanctions. Under UNSC restrictions imposed over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development, Pyongyang is limited to importing 500,000 barrels of refined products a year.
Pyongyang and Moscow have ramped up diplomatic and economic ties in recent years, culminating in Russian president Vladimir Putin’s visit to North Korea in June when the countries’ leaders agreed a mutual defence pact.
The military cooperation between the two countries has been met by international alarm, with Washington, Kyiv and Seoul condemning North Korea for sending military equipment and more than 10,000 troops to Russia to support its war against Ukraine.
Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said last month that Russia’s military interaction with North Korea did not violate international law. North Korea has not acknowledged the deployment of troops to Russia, but said any such move would be in compliance with international law.
Russian ballistic missile attack a ‘severe escalation’, says Zelenskyy
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the use of an experimental ballistic missile by Russia amounted to “a clear and severe escalation” in the war and called for strong worldwide condemnation, as Nato accused Vladimir Putin of seeking to “terrorise” civilians and intimidate Ukraine’s allies.
Nato spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said:
Deploying this capability will neither change the course of the conflict nor deter Nato allies from supporting Ukraine.”
In a statement after Vladimir Putin’s address about Thursday’s strike on a military site in the city of Dnipro, Zelenskyy said the attack was “yet more proof that Russia has no interest in peace”, adding that “pressure is needed. Russia must be forced into real peace, which can only be achieved through strength”.
The Russian president threatened further attacks, saying Moscow “had the right” to strike western countries that provided Kyiv with weapons used against Russian targets.
“A regional conflict in Ukraine previously provoked by the west has acquired elements of a global character,” Putin said in an address to the nation carried by state television after 8pm in Moscow.
Ukraine’s parliament reportedly postponed a Friday sitting because of “potential security issues” after the attack, public broadcaster Suspilne said, quoting sources. It reported that legislators were told to keep their families out of Kyiv’s government district and quoted parliamentarians as saying that, for the moment, the next sitting was not scheduled until December.
The new ballistic missile was called Oreshnik (the hazel), Putin said, and its deployment “was a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate and short-range missiles”. He said Russia would “respond decisively and symmetrically” in the event of an escalation.
Russian defence minister, Andrei Belousov, said in a video released on Friday that Russian forces in Ukraine had accelerated their advance, reports Reuters.
According to the news agency, Belousov was shown in the defence ministry footage visiting a Russian command post in Ukraine and handing out medals for bravery.
Russia provided economic support and anti-air missiles to North Korea in exchange for troops to support Moscow’s war on Ukraine, Seoul’s top security chief told a TV news channel on Friday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“It has been identified that equipment and anti-aircraft missiles aimed at reinforcing Pyongyang’s vulnerable air defence system have been delivered to North Korea,” Shin Won-sik, Seoul’s top security adviser, told TV broadcaster SBS.
Opening summary
Russia fired an “experimental” ballistic missile at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday in what the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called “a clear and severe escalation” of the 33-month-old war.
Vladimir Putin said the strike was “a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate and short-range missiles”. The Russian president also threatened further attacks, saying Moscow “had the right” to strike western countries that provided Kyiv with weapons used against Russian targets.
A Nato spokesperson said Russia was seeking to “terrorise” civilians and intimidate Ukraine’s allies. “Deploying this capability will neither change the course of the conflict nor deter Nato allies from supporting Ukraine,” Farah Dakhlallah said.
The attack came after the US and the UK lifted a ban on Kyiv striking Russian territory with advanced western weapons. Russia notified Washington shortly before Thursday’s strike, a US official said.
Putin said in a televised address to the nation that Moscow hit a Ukrainian military facility with a new medium-range ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik” (the hazel). And the Russian leader hinted the missile was capable of unleashing a nuclear payload and said Russia would “respond decisively and symmetrically” in the event of an escalation.
In other developments:
The new ballistic missile was part of a wider salvo of nine missiles fired from the Astrakhan region of Russia in the early hours of Thursday. Six of the missiles were intercepted by Ukraine’s air force but the new ballistic missile was not stopped. The missile was said to have hit “without consequences”, Ukraine’s air force said, though it added that complete information about victims had yet to be received.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for strong worldwide condemnation on the strike, describing it as a major step-up in the “scale and brutality” of the war. The Ukrainian president said the attack was “yet more proof that Russia has no interest in peace”, adding that a “response is needed. Pressure is needed. Russia must be forced into real peace, which can only be achieved through strength”.
US and UK sources indicated they believed the missile was an experimental, nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), which has a theoretical range of below 3,420 miles (5,500km). That is enough to reach Europe from where it was fired in south-western Russia, but not the US.
UN secretary general António Guterres’s spokesperson said Russia’s use of the new ballistic missile was “yet another concerning and worrying development. “All of this [is] going in the wrong direction,” Stéphane Dujarric said as he called on all parties to de-escalate the conflict and “to protect civilians, not hit civilian targets or critical civilian infrastructure”.
Russian strikes killed at least two people in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, the acting mayor said on Friday. “Several massive explosions occurred in Sumy,” Artem Kobzar said on Telegram. He said air defences were still working as of just before 6am local time and warned residents to stay away from windows. The Sumy regional military administration said a residential neighbourhood had been struck by a Russian drone, adding that rescue operations were under way. It confirmed the two deaths and said 12 people had been injured.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Thursday that its forces had captured the eastern Ukrainian village of Dalne in the Donetsk region, a focal point of their advance. Ukraine’s general staff made no acknowledgment of Dalne being in Russian hands. The Ukrainian military’s late report mentioned the village as one of seven in an area where Russian forces had tried to pierce Ukrainian defences 26 times over the previous 24 hours. It said 10 of 16 armed clashes in the area continued.
Ukraine’s parliament postponed a sitting due to have taken place on Friday out of security concerns, public broadcaster Suspilne reported, quoting sources. It said the order told members to keep their families out of Kyiv’s government district and quoted parliamentarians as saying that, for the moment, the next sitting was not scheduled until December.
