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 4-year-old war, it used a powerful, new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyivโs NATO allies.
The intense barrage and the launch 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.
Europeโs leaders condemned the attack as โescalatory and unacceptable,โ and the European Unionโs top foreign policy envoy said Russian President Vladimir Putinโs reply to diplomacy was โmore missiles and destruction.โ
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 signaled 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 maximalist demands on Ukraine.
Kyiv apartment buildings without heat
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 Kyivโs apartment buildings โ nearly 6,000 โ were left without heat amid daytime temperatures of about minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 Fahrenheit), Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Water supplies also were disrupted.
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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 has played a key role in mediating the exchange of prisoners of war.
He called for a โclear responseโ from the international community, particularly from the U.S., which he said Russia takes seriously.
Moscow says attack was retaliation
Ukraineโs Security Service said it identified debris from the Oreshnik missile in the Lviv region in the countryโs west. It was fired from Russiaโs Kapustin Yar test range near the Caspian Sea in southwestern Russia and targeted civilian infrastructure, investigators said.
Russiaโs Defense Ministry said the attack was a retaliation to what Moscow claimed was a Ukrainian drone strike on one of Putinโs residences last month. Both Trump and Ukraine rejected the Russian claim.
Moscow didnโt 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 the Oreshnik streaks to its target at Mach 10, โlike a meteorite,โ and 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 it against allies of Kyiv that allow it to strike inside Russia 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 it gives Russia a new element of psychological warfare, unnerving Ukrainians and intimidating Western countries that aid Ukraine.
Ukraine seeks international support
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 U.N. Security Council and a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council.
โSuch 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 Russiaโs reckless actions,โ he said in a post on X.
Pope Leo XIV, speaking at the Vatican, urged the international community to keep pushing for peace and end the suffering in Ukraine.
โFaced with this tragic situation, the Holy See strongly reiterates the pressing need for an immediate ceasefire, and for dialogue motivated by a sincere search for ways leading to peace,โ the pontiff told ambassadors to the Vatican from around the world.
The leaders of Britain, France and Germany said they spoke about the attack and deemed it โescalatory and unacceptable.โ
EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the Oreshnik launch was โmeant as a warning to Europe and to the U.S.โ
โPutin doesnโt want peace, Russiaโs reply to diplomacy is more missiles and destruction,โ Kallas wrote on social media.
Attacks hit Kyiv apartment blocks
Several districts in Kyiv were hit in the overnight attack, according to Tkachenko, the cityโs military administration chief. In the Desnyanskyi district, a drone crashed onto the roof of a multistory building and the first two floors of another residential building were damaged.
In the Dnipro district, parts of a drone damaged a multistory building and a fire broke out.
Dmytro Karpenkoโs windows were shattered in the attack on Kyiv. When he saw that his neighborโs house was burning, he rushed to help him.
โWhat Russia is doing, of course, shows that they do not want peace. But people really want peace, people are suffering, people are dying,โ the 45-year old said.
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