On Thursday night, four people were killed and 25 were injured in Kiev, as a result of Russia’s use of the Oreshnik ballistic missile in a huge strike.
This is the second time Russia has used the weapon.
The first time it was deployed in Dnipro in November of 2025.
Thursday night saw the sky over Kiev and Lviv light up from explosions, with booming resounding for hours on end.
Lviv, whose infrastructure was hit, is only 60 kilometres away from Ukraine’s border with Poland.
The EU and Nato expressed their displeasure at the proximity of this attack to their protected space.
Russia’s defence ministry stated that the strike was a response to the drone attack targeting Vladimir Putin’s residence in late December.
Ukraine denies this attack. Even Donald Trump has expressed doubt.
The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range, hypersonic ballistic missile.
It is capable of reaching up to 5,500km.
The missile is believed have a warhead that deliberately fragments during its final descent into several, independently targeted inert projectiles, causing distinctive repeated explosions moments apart, reports the BBC.
The strike on Kiev also included 13 ballistic missiles which targeted energy facilities and civilian infrastructure overnight, as well as 22 cruise missiles and 242 drones.
The Qatari embassy was also damaged in this process.
Kiev scrambled to restore heating and energy, in this harsh phase of winter., at temperatures as low as -15C. As such, residents were encouraged to relocate if possible, as half of the capital’s apartment buildings were left without heat.
The technique used to hit the Ukrainian capital has been called “double-tap” hit – in which the first strike is followed by a second, killing rescuers who have arrived to help the injured.
Also on Thursday night, half a million people in the Russian region of Belgorod were left without power following Ukrainian shelling of infrastructure. In the northern city of Orvol, a Ukrainian strike on a Russian power plant iaffected the water and heating systems.
