Russia fires hypersonic missile at Ukraine near NATO border

Russia fired a powerful hypersonic missile overnight at a target in Ukraine near the border with NATO-member Poland, in what Kyiv’s European allies described as an attempt to intimidate them from supporting Ukraine.

Moscow said it fired the Oreshnik missile in response to what it calls an attempted drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences last month, which Ukraine denies and the United States has said did not happen.

It was only the second time Russia has fired the Oreshnik at Ukraine, and came amid a night of air attacks that Ukrainian authorities said also killed four people in Kyiv, knocked out power in the capital and damaged the Qatari embassy there.

The Oreshnik, an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) designed to project power across Europe and which Moscow says is impossible to intercept, can carry nuclear warheads although there was no suggestion it had done so. A senior Ukrainian official said it appeared to be carrying inert “dummy” warheads.

“Such 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,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said on X.

“It is absurd that Russia attempts to justify this strike with the fake ‘Putin residence attack’ that never happened,” he added. “Putin uses an IRBM near EU and NATO border in response to his own hallucinations — this is truly a global threat. And it demands global responses.”