The Russian military said on Friday that it had fired its hypersonic Oreshnik missile at a target in Ukraine as part of what it described as a massive overnight strike on energy facilities and drone manufacturing sites.
In a statement, Russia’s defence ministry said the attack was carried out in response to an attempted Ukrainian drone strike on one of President Vladimir Putin’s residences at the end of December.
Kyiv has rejected that claim, calling the Russian assertion that it tried to attack the residence in Russia’s Novgorod region “a lie.”
Ukraine said it was briefing its Western partners on the incident. “Kyiv is informing US, Europe on details of the strike, urges partners to increase pressure on Russia,” the Ukrainian foreign minister said.
Earlier, the governor of Ukraine’s western Lviv region said a Russian attack had struck an infrastructure target.
Unverified social media reports suggested the site was a massive underground gas storage facility, though Reuters said it could not verify that information.
Ukrainian media quoted the Ukrainian Air Force as saying that a ballistic missile had been used in the strike and that it was travelling at a speed of nearly 13,000 km per hour, or about 8,000 miles per hour.
Russia first fired an Oreshnik missile, named after the Russian word for hazel tree, at what it said was a military factory in Ukraine in November 2024.
Ukrainian sources said at the time that the missile carried dummy warheads rather than explosives and caused limited damage.
President Putin has said the intermediate range Oreshnik missile is impossible to intercept because of speeds reportedly exceeding 10 times the speed of sound.
He has also claimed that its destructive power is comparable to that of a nuclear weapon even when fitted with a conventional warhead.
Some Western officials have expressed scepticism about the missile’s capabilities. A US official said in December 2024 that the weapon was not seen as a game changer on the battlefield.