Russia fires Oreshnik hypersonic missiles, with attack on Ukraine killing at least four people
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Russia attacked Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a major overnight attack, officials said Friday, killing at least four people. Only for the second time, it used a new ballistic missile that says it flies 10 times the speed of sound and is unstoppable.
The tense standoff and the launch of a nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile came days after Ukraine and its allies reported major progress in agreeing how to protect the country from Moscow’s aggression if a peace deal is struck to end Russia’s nearly four-year offensive.
Months of US-led peace efforts have failed to stop the fighting, however. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has made significant progress on the terms of the peace talks in talks with Washington’s delegation. But Moscow has given no public signs that it is willing to back down from its demands.
Ukrainian officials said four people were killed and at least 22 were injured in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, when an overnight attack hit apartments.
Among those killed was an emergency worker, according to the head of Kyiv’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko. Five rescuers were injured while responding to the ongoing attack, Ukrainian security forces said.
The attack destroyed the Qatari Embassy in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said on Friday. He noted that Qatar played a major role in mediating the exchange of prisoners of war.
He asked for a “clear response” from the international community, especially the United States, which he said Russia takes seriously.
The attack comes amid renewed tensions between Moscow and Washington after Russia criticized the US seizure of an oil tanker in the North Atlantic.
Oreshnik did damage in Lviv: reports
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack was in retaliation for what Moscow said was a Ukrainian airstrike on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence last month. Both Ukraine and US President Donald Trump have rejected Russia’s claim of an attack on Putin’s compound.
Putin has previously said that the Oreshnik reaches its target at Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and said it is immune to any missile defense system. Several of them used in a conventional strike could be as dangerous as a nuclear attack, according to Putin, who has warned the West that Russia could use the Oreshnik next against allies in Kyiv that it allows to hit inside Russia with its long-range missiles.
A US intelligence investigation found Ukraine innocent of what Russia says was a drone strike on Vladimir Putin’s compound. Both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gave year-end news conferences amid ongoing talks on a peace deal that have been plagued by key unresolved issues.
Ukrainian intelligence says the missile has six warheads, each with six bullets.
Russia did not say where the Oreshnik hit, but Russian media and military bloggers said it was headed for a large underground natural gas storage facility in Ukraine’s western Lviv region. Ukraine’s foreign military aid is believed to pass through that region, which borders Poland.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that Ukraine will initiate international measures regarding the use of the missile, including an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council and a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council.
“Such a strike near the borders of the EU and NATO is a serious threat to the security of the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community. We want strong answers to Russia’s reckless actions,” he said on the X website.
Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said that Russia had hit critical infrastructure with a ballistic missile, but did not provide details. He said the missile was traveling at a speed of 13,000 km/h – which is about Mach 10 – and said that some type of rocket was being investigated.
Russia first used the Oreshnik missile in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024. Analysts say that it gives Russia a new dimension of psychological warfare, the Ukrainian people do not panic and it scares the Western countries that supply weapons to Ukraine.
‘People really want peace’: Dnipro resident
In Kyiv, many districts have been attacked, said Tkachenko of the City Military Administration. In Desnyanskyi district, a drone crashes into the roof of a multi-storey building. In another statement in the district, the first two floors of a residential building were damaged.
In the Dnipro region, parts of a drone damaged a multi-storey building and a fire broke out.
Dmytro Karpenko’s windows were shattered in the Kyiv attack. When he saw that his neighbor’s house was on fire, he rushed to help him.
“What Russia is doing shows that it does not want peace. But people really want peace, people are suffering, people are dying,” said Karpenko, 45.
Running water and electricity have been disrupted in parts of the capital as a result of the attack, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The attack came just hours after Zelenskyy warned the nation of Russia’s plans for a large-scale attack. He said Russia intends to take advantage of the cold weather in the capital which has made roads and streets icy.
