Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Kyiv kill at least four people

Russia has hit Kyiv and its surrounding areas with massive missile and drone attacks, killing four people and wounding more than 60, Ukrainian authorities say, after Moscow had threatened retaliation for strikes in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

Russia confirmed on Sunday it had launched an Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile at Ukraine in the overnight strikes, the third time the nuclear-capable weapon has been used in the four-year war.

“In response to Ukraine’s terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure on Russian territory, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive strike using Oreshnik ballistic missiles, Iskander air-launched ballistic missiles, Kinzhal hypersonic air-launched ballistic missiles and Tsirkon cruise missiles,” as well as drones, the defence ministry said in a statement.

Explosions started just after 1am on Sunday (22:00 GMT on Saturday) following warnings by Ukraine’s air force that Russia ⁠might launch a hypersonic ballistic missile.

The attack also included 600 drones and 90 air-, sea- and ground-launched missiles, according to Ukraine’s air force. Ukrainian air defences destroyed and jammed 549 drones and 55 missiles, and 19 other missiles failed to reach their targets, the air force said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people were killed in the capital and 81 wounded. The head of the surrounding Kyiv region said two people were also killed there and nine wounded.

Damage was recorded in 40 locations across several districts of the capital, including residential buildings, Kyiv military administration head Tymur Tkachenko said in a Telegram post.

“The capital has come under a mass ballistic missile attack,” he said.

The attack also caused minor damage to Ukraine’s cabinet building and to the Foreign Ministry.

President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy told Al Jazeera that it was “crazy” that Russia was attacking civilian and cultural structures including the Museum of Chernobyl.

In a post on Telegram, he said: “Russia tried to destroy not only life, but also memory.” Zelensky added that over 40 percent of the museum was “irretrievably lost”.

Ukrainian authorities and the US embassy had earlier warned of an attack on Kyiv after Russia said it would “punish” those responsible for deadly strikes in a part of eastern Ukraine under its control, which Moscow said hit a college dormitory and killed at least 18 people.

Launched overnight on Thursday into Friday, the drone salvo – one of Ukraine’s deadliest such strikes in months – also wounded 42 people in Starobilsk in the occupied Luhansk region, trapping people beneath the debris.

In Kyiv, officials reported damage to offices, shops and the foyer of a metro station. In the city’s Independence Square, ⁠a post office was damaged.

Russia had already attacked Ukraine twice with the Oreshnik, a missile Russian President Vladimir Putin has boasted is impossible to intercept because of its reported velocity of more than 10 times the ‌speed of sound.

The Oreshnik’s warhead appears to have split into 36 submunitions, according to a review of Reuters footage of the strike ⁠by Rollo Collins, an investigator at the Centre for Information Resilience, an open-source investigation organisation.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Kyiv, Audrey MacAlpine said “anytime Russia sends an Oreshnik, it’s usually trying to send a message”.

“What these overnight strikes tell us is that both sides are moving more towards escalation than they are towards peace,” said MacAlpine.

Several EU leaders condemned the attacks. German Chancellor Friderich Merz said he “sharply condemns this reckless escalation” while Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on X: “Russia’s missile attacks are shocking. The deployment of an Oreschnik marks a further escalation.”

In France, President Emmanuel Macron said “France condemns this attack and the use of the Oreshnik ballistic missile, ⁠which above all ⁠signify a form of escalation and the ⁠impasse of Russia’s ⁠war of ⁠aggression.”

Meanwhile, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, wrote on X: “Russia hit a dead-end on the battlefield, so it terrorizes Ukraine with deliberate strikes on city centres. These are abhorrent acts of terror meant to kill as many civilians as possible.”

She said that EU Foreign Ministers will discuss how to dial up the international pressure on Russia next week.