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Russia bombed Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in a large-scale nighttime 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 powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine, a clear warning to kyiv’s NATO allies.
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 U.S.-led peace deal is reached.
European leaders condemned the attack as “escalatory and unacceptable”, and the European Union’s top foreign policy envoy said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response to diplomacy was “more missiles and destruction”.
The attack also coincides with a further chill in relations between Moscow and Washington after Russia condemned the US seizure of an oil tanker in the North Atlantic. It comes as US President Donald Trump indicated he agreed with a package of tough sanctions designed to economically cripple Moscow, which has given no public sign of wanting to move away from its maximalist demands on Ukraine.
Buildings in Kyiv without heating
Ukrainian authorities said four people were killed and at least 25 injured in kyiv when apartment buildings were struck overnight.
Among those killed was a medical rescuer, according to the head of the kyiv city military administration, Tymur Tkachenko. Four doctors and a police officer were injured while responding to the attacks, authorities said.
About half of kyiv’s snow-covered apartment buildings – almost 6,000 – remained without heating as daytime temperatures hovered around minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 Fahrenheit), Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The water supply was also interrupted.
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Municipal services have restored electricity and heating to public establishments, including hospitals and maternity wards, using portable boilers, he explained.
The attack damaged the Qatari embassy in kyiv, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who 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.
Moscow says attack was retaliation
Ukrainian security services said they had 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 range near the Caspian Sea in southwest Russia and targeted civilian infrastructure, investigators said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack was retaliation for what Moscow claimed was a Ukrainian drone strike on one of Putin’s residences last month. Trump and Ukraine have rejected the Russian claims.
Moscow did not specify where the Oreshnik struck, but Russian media and military bloggers said it targeted an underground natural gas storage facility in the Lviv region. Western military aid comes to Ukraine from a supply center in Poland, just across the border.
Putin has already said that the Oreshnik moves toward its target at Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and that 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 use them against kyiv’s allies who would allow it to strike inside Russian territory with 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 this gives Russia a new element of psychological warfare, disconcerting Ukrainians and intimidating Western countries helping Ukraine.
Ukraine seeks international support
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.
Pope Leo XIV, speaking at the Vatican, urged the international community to continue to promote peace and end the suffering in Ukraine.
“Faced with this tragic situation, the Holy See strongly reiterates the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and a dialogue motivated by a sincere search for paths leading to peace,” the pontiff told ambassadors from around the world at the Vatican.
Leaders of Britain, France and Germany said they spoke about the attack and called it “worrying and unacceptable.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Oreshnik’s launch was “intended to serve as a warning to Europe and the United States.”
“Putin doesn’t want peace, Russia’s answer to diplomacy is more missiles and destruction,” Kallas wrote on social media.
Attacks hit buildings in Kyiv
Several neighborhoods in kyiv were hit during the nighttime attack, according to Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration. In Desnyanskyi district, a drone crashed on the roof of a multi-story building and the first two floors of another 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 burning, he rushed to help him.
“What Russia is doing, of course, shows that it does not want peace. But people really want peace, they are suffering, they are dying,” the 45-year-old said.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
