Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a large-scale overnight attack, officials said Friday, killing at least four people. For only the second time, it used a new ballistic missile that it says flies at 10 times the speed of sound and is unstoppable.
The intense barrage and the launching of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile came days after Ukraine and its allies reported major progress toward agreeing on how to defend the country from further Moscow aggression if a peace deal is struck to end Russia’s almost four-year-old invasion.
Months of U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to stop the fighting, however. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has made significant progress on the terms of a possible peace settlement in talks with Washington envoys. But Moscow has given no public signal it is willing to budge from its demands.
He called for a “clear response” from the international community, particularly from the United States, which he said Russia takes seriously.
The attack also comes amid a new chill in relations between Moscow and Washington after Russia condemned the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker in the North Atlantic.
Ukrainian officials said four people were killed and at least 25 wounded in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, during the overnight attack as apartment buildings were struck.
Those killed included an emergency medical aid worker, according to Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko. Five rescue workers sustained injuries while responding to the ongoing attacks, Ukraine’s security service said.
Oreshnik did damage in Lviv
Russia’s Defence Ministry said the attack was a retaliation to what Moscow said was a Ukrainian drone strike on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence last month. Both Ukraine and U.S. President Donald Trump have rejected the Russian claim of the attack on Putin’s residence.
Putin has previously said that the Oreshnik streaks to its target at Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and has claimed it is immune to any missile defence system. Several of them used in a conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack, according to Putin, who has warned the West that Russia could use the Oreshnik next against allies of Kyiv that allow it to strike inside Russia with their longer-range missiles.
A U.S. intelligence assessment has determined that Ukraine is not responsible for what Russia claims was a drone strike targeting Vladimir Putin’s residence. Both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave year-end news conferences amid continuing discussions about a peace deal held up by key unsettled issues.
Ukrainian intelligence says the missile has six warheads, each carrying six submunitions.
Russia didn’t say where the Oreshnik hit, but Russian media and military bloggers said it targeted a huge underground natural gas storage facility in Ukraine’s western Lviv region. Foreign military aid for Ukraine is believed to pass through that region, which borders Poland.
Ukraine’s Security Service said it identified debris from a Russian Oreshnik missile in the Lviv area. It was fired from Russia’s Kapustin Yar testing range and targeted civilian infrastructure, investigators said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine would be initiating international action in response to the use of the missile, including an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council and a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council.
“Such a strike close to EU and NATO border is a grave threat to the security on the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community. We demand strong responses to Russia’s reckless actions,” he said in a post on X.
Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said that Russia struck critical infrastructure with a ballistic missile, but didn’t give details. He said the missile travelled at a speed of 13,000 km/h — which would be around Mach 10 — and that the specific type of rocket was being investigated.
The leaders of Britain, France and Germany described Russia’s use of the Oreshnik as “escalatory and unacceptable,” according to a readout of their call released by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office on Friday. The readout was of a call between Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Russia first used the Oreshnik missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024. Analysts say it affords Russia a new element of psychological warfare, unnerving Ukrainians and scaring Western countries that supply weaponry to Ukraine.
‘People really want peace’: Dnipro resident
In Kyiv, several districts were hit in the attack, said City Military Administration’s Tkachenko. In the Desnyanskyi district, a drone crashed onto the roof of a multi-story building. At another address in the same district, the first two floors of a residential building were damaged.
In Dnipro district, parts of a drone damaged a multistory building and a fire broke out.
Dmytro Karpenko’s windows were shattered in the attack on Kyiv. When he saw that his neighbour’s house was on fire, he rushed out to help him.
“What Russia is doing, of course, shows that they do not want peace. But people really want peace, people are suffering, people are dying,” Karpenko, 45, said.
Running water and electricity were disrupted in parts of the capital as a result of the attack, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The attack damaged the Qatari Embassy in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said Friday. He noted that Qatar has played a key role in mediating the exchange of prisoners of war.
He called for a “clear response” from the international community, particularly from the United States, which he said Russia takes seriously.
The attack took place just hours after Zelenskyy alerted the nation about Russia’s intentions for a large-scale offensive. He said that Russia aimed to take advantage of the frigid weather in the capital that has made roads and streets perilously icy.
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