Russia uses hypersonic missiles in Ukraine in a warning to the West – National
Russia attacked Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in an overnight attack, officials said on Friday, killing at least four people in the capital. For only the second time in the nearly 4-year war, it used a powerful, new hypersonic missile that hit western Ukraine as a clear warning to NATO allies in Kyiv.
The tense standoff and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile came days after Ukraine and its allies reported major progress in agreeing how to protect the country from further aggression by Moscow if a US-led peace deal is implemented.
European leaders condemned the attack as “escalating and unacceptable,” and the European Union’s top foreign policy official said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to negotiations was “a lot of missiles and destruction.”
The attack also coincided with a new strain in relations between Moscow and Washington after Russia criticized the US seizure of an oil tanker in the North Atlantic. It comes as US President Donald Trump has signaled that he is on board with a package of sanctions aimed at crippling the economy of Moscow, which has given no indication to the public that it is willing to back down from its major demands on Ukraine.
Apartment buildings in Kyiv without heating
Ukrainian officials said four people were killed and at least 25 injured in Kyiv when apartment buildings were struck overnight.
Among those killed was an emergency worker, according to the head of Kyiv’s military administration, Tymur Tkachenko. Four doctors and one police officer were injured while responding to the attack, authorities said.
About half of Kyiv’s frozen apartments – about 6,000 – were left without heat amid daytime temperatures of around 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 Fahrenheit), Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Water sources were also disrupted.
Get daily world news
Get the day’s top news, politics, economics, and current affairs, delivered to your inbox once a day.
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 President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who noted that Qatar played a major role in resolving the exchange of prisoners of war.
He asked for a “clear response” from the international community, especially the US, which he said Russia takes seriously.
Moscow says the attack was revenge
Ukraine’s Security Service said it identified debris from the Oreshnik missile in the Lviv region in the west of the country. It was fired from Russia’s Kapustin Yar test site near the Caspian Sea in southwestern Russia and targeted civilian infrastructure, investigators said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack was in retaliation for what Moscow said was a Ukrainian airstrike on one of Putin’s residences last month. Both Trump and Ukraine have rejected Russia’s claim.
Moscow did not say where the Oreshnik hit, but Russian media and military bloggers said it was headed for an underground natural gas storage facility in the Lviv region. Western military aid flows into Ukraine from a supply base in Poland just across the border.
Putin has previously said that the Oreshnik reaches its target at Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and is immune to any missile defense system. Several of those 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 them against Kyiv’s allies, which it allows to strike inside Russia with long-range missiles.
Ukrainian intelligence says the missile has six warheads, each with six bullets.
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, which saddens the Ukrainian people and threatens Western countries that help Ukraine.
Ukraine wants international support
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 border 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.
Pope Leo XIV, speaking at the Vatican, urged the international community to continue to fight for peace and end the suffering in Ukraine.
“Confronted with this sad situation, the Holy See is emphasizing the need for an immediate halt, and for dialogue to be motivated by the sincere search for ways that lead to peace,” the pope told Vatican diplomats from around the world.
The leaders of Britain, France and Germany said they spoke about the attack and found it “horrific and unacceptable.”
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said Oreshnik’s launch was “intended as a warning to Europe and the US”.
“Putin does not want peace, Russia’s answer to diplomacy is more missiles and destruction,” Kallas wrote on social media.
Attacks hit apartments in Kyiv
Several districts in Kyiv were attacked at night, according to Tkachenko, the city’s military chief. In Desnyanskyi district, an airplane crashed into the roof of a multi-storey building and the first two floors of another residential building were damaged.
In the Dnipro region, parts of a drone destroyed 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 want peace, people are suffering, people are dying,” said the 45-year-old.
