Russia slammed Donald Trump’s plan for an ‘Iron Dome’ missile defence shield in a nuclear weapons space war row. Moscow said the move was designed to weaken Russian and Chinese nuclear deterrence. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also stressed that Russia saw the “Iron Dome” plan as confirmation of a US intention to turn space into a theatre of military confrontation. Trump signed an order on Monday for the implementation of a next-generation US missile defence shield against ballistic, hypersonic, cruise missile and other forms of aerial attack.

The plan is believed to be modelled on the defensive dome used by Israel, which successfully defeated an attack by Iran last year. In the executive order, Trump stressed: “The threat of attack by ballistic, hypersonic, and cruise missiles, and other advanced aerial attacks, remains the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”. Vladimir Putin, who is yet to hold talks with Trump, has signalled that he is ready to discuss nuclear arms controls.

The Russian president has made nuclear threats over the Ukraine war as the West has increasingly ratcheted up support for Kyiv. After ballistic missiles supplied by the US and Britain were fired by Ukraine at targets inside Russia, Putin hit back attacking the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a “new conventional intermediate range” missile codenamed Oreshnik. The missile flew for 15 minutes and reached a maximum speed of beyond Mach 11, said spy chiefs in Kyiv.

Mach 11 is eleven times the speed of sound. The West is building up its military forces in the face of the growing threat from Putin’s Russia, and the expansionist foreign policy of China’s Xi Jinping. Earlier this week, two Russian nuclear deterrent bomber planes flew over the Sea of Japan. The Ukraine war has seen the rapid development of drone warfare, and also Russia increasingly resorting to “grey zone” acts of aggression.

They include damaging critical underwater cables in the Baltic Sea, according to the West. Britain has warned that Russian “shadow fleet” ships that seek to do the same in British waters face being raided by Royal Marine commandos. Defence Secretary John Healey told earlier this month how he ordered a Royal Navy submarine to surface close to a suspected Russian spy ship, the Yantar, which was loitering over undersea infrastructure in British waters.

Trump is also piling pressure on Nato allies in Europe to boost defence spending so they take on greater responsibility for protecting the Continent, rather than relying so heavily on American might. Sir Keir Starmer’s has pledged to increase UK defence spending to 2.5 per cent but has not yet set a date by when this will be achieved. Ukraine’s military said on Friday its drones hit a major oil refinery in Russia’s Volgograd region, causing explosions and a fire, in the latest of a series of attacks on fuel and power plants.