Russia fires Oreshnik hypersonic missile, attacks on Ukraine kill at least 4

Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a large-scale nighttime attack, officials said Friday, killing at least four people. For only the second time, they used a new ballistic missile that they say flies at 10 times the speed of sound and is unstoppable.

The intense barrage and launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile came days after Ukraine and its allies reported major progress toward agreement on how to defend the country against further aggression from Moscow if a peace deal was reached to end Russia’s nearly four-year-old invasion.

However, months of U.S.-led peace efforts have failed to end the fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had made significant progress on the terms of a possible peace settlement during negotiations with Washington’s envoys. But Moscow has given no public sign that it is prepared to back down from its demands.

Ukrainian officials said four people were killed and at least 22 injured in the Ukrainian capital, kyiv, in the overnight attack as apartment buildings were hit.

Among those killed was a medical rescuer, according to the head of the kyiv city military administration, Tymur Tkachenko. Five rescue workers were injured while responding to the ongoing attacks, Ukraine’s security services said.

The attack damaged the Qatari embassy in Kyiv, Zelenskyy said on Friday. He stressed that Qatar 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.

This attack comes against a backdrop of further cooling in relations between Moscow and Washington after Russia condemned the American seizure of an oil tanker in the North Atlantic.

Orechnik caused damage in Lviv: reports

The Russian Defense Ministry said the attack was in retaliation for what Moscow said was a Ukrainian drone strike on the residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. Ukraine and US President Donald Trump have rejected the Russian theory that the attack on Putin’s residence took place.

Putin has previously said the Oreshnik is heading toward its target at Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and claimed it is immune to any missile defense 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 then use the Oreshnik against kyiv’s allies who allow it to strike inside Russia with their longer-range missiles.

Ukrainian intelligence says the missile has six warheads, each carrying six submunitions.

Russia did not specify where the Oreshnik struck, but Russian media and military bloggers said it targeted a massive underground natural gas storage facility in the Lviv region of western Ukraine. Foreign military aid to Ukraine would likely pass through this border region with Poland.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine would launch 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 near the borders of the EU and NATO poses a serious threat to the security of the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community. We demand strong responses to Russia’s reckless actions,” he said in a message on X.

Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said Russia had hit critical infrastructure with a ballistic missile, but did not give details. He said the missile traveled at a speed of 13,000 km/h, or about Mach 10, and that the specific type of rocket was being studied.

Russia first used the Oreshnik missile on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro in November 2024. Analysts say this offers Russia a new element of psychological warfare, disconcerting Ukrainians and frightening Western countries that supply weapons to Ukraine.

“People really want peace”: Dnipro resident

In kyiv, several neighborhoods were hit in the attack, said Tkachenko of the city’s military administration. In the Desnyanskyi district, a drone crashed on the roof of a multi-story building. At another address in the same area, the first two floors of a residential building were damaged.

In the Dnipro region, elements of a drone damaged a multi-story building and a fire broke out.

Dmytro Karpenko’s windows were broken during the attack on Kyiv. When he saw that his neighbor’s house was on fire, he rushed to help him.

“What Russia is doing, of course, shows that it does not want peace. But people really want peace, they suffer, they die,” Karpenko, 45, said.

Running water and electricity were cut off in parts of the capital following the attack, kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

The attack came just hours after Zelensky alerted the nation of Russia’s intentions to launch a full-scale offensive. He said Russia was seeking to take advantage of freezing weather in the capital that has left roads and streets dangerously icy.