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 in the capital.
For only the second time in the nearly four-year-old war, it used a new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv’s NATO allies.
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 U.S.-led peace deal is struck.
Europe’s leaders condemned the attack as “escalatory and unacceptable,” and the European Union’s top foreign policy envoy said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s reply to diplomacy was “more missiles and destruction.”
The attack also coincides with a new chill in relations between Moscow and Washington after Russia condemned the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker in the North Atlantic. It comes as U.S. President Donald Trump signalled he is on board with a hard-hitting sanctions package meant to economically cripple Moscow, which has given no public signal it is willing to budge from its demands on Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said four people were killed and at least 25 wounded in Kyiv as apartment buildings were struck overnight.
Those killed included an emergency medical aid worker, according to Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko. Four doctors and one police officer were injured while responding to the attacks, authorities said.
About half of snowy Kyiv’s apartment buildings — nearly 6,000 — were left without heat amid daytime temperatures of about -8 C, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Water supplies also were disrupted.
WATCH | See the aftermath of a Russian hit in Ukraine’s capital after a wave of strikes:
See the aftermath of a Russian hit in Ukraine’s capital after a wave of strikes
A Kyiv senior citizen asks why ‘the whole world can’t rein in one man,’ in a reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Municipal services restored power and heat to public facilities, including hospitals and maternity wards, using portable boiler units, he said
The attack damaged the Qatari Embassy in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who 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 U.S., which he said Russia takes seriously.
Oreshnik did damage in Lviv
Ukraine’s Security Service said it identified debris from the Oreshnik missile in the Lviv region in the country’s west. It was fired from Russia’s Kapustin Yar test range near the Caspian Sea in southwestern Russia and targeted civilian infrastructure, investigators said.
“I heard a loud, shocking explosion, and it’s normal at this time of the war to hear these things here,” said Lviv resident Kristofer Chokhovich, who said he was an American. “I just want everyone in the world to know that Ukraine is strong and we don’t care how many missiles you send.”
Another resident, Ulyana Fedun, described the attack as “very unpleasant” but not scary because “we’ve been living in this state for four years.”
Russia’s Defence Ministry said the attack was a retaliation to what Moscow claimed was a Ukrainian drone strike on one of Putin’s residences last month. Both Trump and Ukraine rejected the Russian claim.
Moscow didn’t say where the Oreshnik hit, but Russian media and military bloggers said it targeted an underground natural gas storage facility in the Lviv region. Western military aid flows to Ukraine from a supply hub in Poland just across the border.
Putin has previously said that the Oreshnik streaks to its target at Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and 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.
Ukrainian intelligence says the missile has six warheads, each carrying six submunitions.
Russia first used the Oreshnik missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024. Analysts say it gives Russia a new element of psychological warfare, unnerving Ukrainians and intimidating Western countries that aid Ukraine.
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.
WATCH | CIA denies Russia claim that Ukraine tried to strike Putin residence:
CIA rejects Russia’s claim Ukraine tried to hit Putin’s residence
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.
The leaders of Britain, France and Germany said they spoke about the attack and deemed it “escalatory and unacceptable.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the Oreshnik launch was “meant as a warning to Europe and to the U.S.”
“Putin doesn’t want peace, Russia’s reply to diplomacy is more missiles and destruction,” Kallas wrote on social media.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said in statement on X that “Canada condemns” the Oreshnik launch as “a clear and dangerous escalation that targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure and the homes of innocent Ukrainians.”
Carney said Canada calls on Russia to “immediately cease its strikes and end this illegal war of aggression.”
‘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-storey building and the first two floors of another residential building were damaged.
In Dnipro district, parts of a drone damaged a multistory building and a fire broke out.
Firefighters stand in front of a residential building that was hit during a night of Russian drone and missile attacks, in Kyiv on Friday. (Thomas Peter/Reuters)
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.