Russia Strikes Ukraine Using Rarely-Deployed Oreshnik Missile

Updated by Faith Barbara N Ruhinda at 1400 EAT on Friday 9 January 2026

Russia Uses Rare Oreshnik Missile in Overnight Strikes on Ukraine
Russia deployed the Oreshnik ballistic missile in a large-scale overnight attack on Ukraine.

Four people were killed and 25 others injured in Kyiv on Thursday night, where loud explosions lit up the sky for several hours.

It is only the second time Moscow has used the Oreshnik. The missile was first deployed in November 2024 to strike the central city of Dnipro.

Russia’s defence ministry said the strike was a response to a Ukrainian drone attack on President Vladimir Putin’s residence in late December, which Kyiv denies carrying out.

Russia Launches Oreshnik Missile Strike on Lviv, Ukraine Reports Multiple Attacks Overnight
While Russia’s defence ministry did not specify the target of the Oreshnik missile, videos circulating on social media shortly before midnight (22:00 GMT) showed multiple explosions on the outskirts of Lviv, in western Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian authorities confirmed that a ballistic missile had struck infrastructure in Lviv, roughly 60km (40 miles) from the Polish border.

The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile, capable of reaching up to 5,500km (3,417 miles). It is believed to carry a warhead that fragments during descent into several independently targeted projectiles, producing a series of distinct explosions.
“Such a strike close to the EU and NATO border is a grave threat to European security and a test for the transatlantic community,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said. He added that the attack was launched “in response to [Putin’s] own hallucinations,” referring to the alleged December drone attack on the Russian president’s residence.

The EU expressed skepticism over the strike, and former U.S. President Donald Trump last week also questioned whether such an attack had occurred.
Zelensky said that in addition to the Oreshnik, Russian forces launched 13 other ballistic missiles targeting energy facilities and civilian infrastructure, alongside 22 cruise missiles and 242 drones. One missile damaged a building at the Qatari embassy.

He accused Moscow of targeting “the normal life of ordinary people” during a cold spell and said authorities were doing everything possible to restore heating and electricity.

As Lviv and other western regions came under attack on Thursday night, Kyiv was also targeted with more than a dozen missiles and hundreds of drones.

A paramedic was killed while responding to a damaged apartment in the capital. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko and President Volodymyr Zelensky described the incident as a “double-tap” strike, in which an initial attack is followed by a second targeting rescuers.

Two apartment buildings along the east bank of the Dnipro River and a high-rise in Kyiv’s central district were among the structures hit.

The power supply was disrupted in several Kyiv neighborhoods in the middle of a harsh winter, with temperatures expected to drop to -15°C (5°F) this weekend, BBC reported.

Targeting of power plants has become a persistent feature of the war, with Ukraine increasingly responding to Russia’s sustained attacks on energy infrastructure that leave millions without electricity or heating.

On Thursday night, as Moscow’s assault on Ukraine continued, half a million people in Russia’s Belgorod region were left without power following Ukrainian shelling of infrastructure, the local governor said. Authorities also reported that a Ukrainian strike on a power plant in the northern city of Oryol affected water and heating systems.

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