Russia launched a barrage of missiles at Ukraine overnight Thursday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv and hitting infrastructure in the country’s west with a ballistic missile, authorities said, in the latest onslaught targeting the country amid freezing temperatures.
The strikes come hours after Moscow repeated that European troops deployed to Ukraine as part of any future peace deal would be considered “legitimate targets,” and the seizing of a Russian-flagged oil tanker by the United States on Wednesday.
Several explosions and a ballistic missile strike on a critical infrastructure facility were reported by authorities in the western city of Lviv.
The missile was “moving at a speed of about 13,000 kilometers per hour along a ballistic trajectory,” a statement from the Air Command “West” of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said. It added the type of missile would be determined after its components had been examined.
A speed of 13,000 kilometers per hour is about 10 times the speed of sound. One of the few projectiles capable of such speeds is Russia’s Oreshnik missile, which Putin has boasted travels at Mach 10. Russia first fired an Oreshnik missile at Ukraine in November 2024.
In Kyiv a CNN reporter said that the attack began around midnight, starting with multiple drone strikes on residential buildings.
Streetlights flickered before large parts of the city were plunged into darkness, as a thick fog settled over the streets and temperatures plummeted to –5 degrees Celsius (23 degrees Fahrenheit).
Four people were killed and 10 others wounded in the attack, according to the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko, who said “critical infrastructure” had also been damaged.
There was “no information” about casualties following the missile strike on Lviv, mayor Andriy Sadovyi wrote on Telegram. “Civilian facilities and residential buildings in the city have not been affected,” he said.
Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with drones and missiles in recent weeks, a tactic used in previous winters. The strikes have left tens of thousands of people across the country without power or heating amid freezing winter temperatures. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the aim of such attacks is “to create chaos and apply psychological pressure on the population.”
People take shelter inside an underground car park during Russian drone and missile strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 9, 2026. Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters
The reports came hours after the US Embassy in Ukraine said it had “received information concerning a potentially significant air attack that may occur at any time over the next several days.”
The attacks also come as Russia doubled down on its longstanding position of declaring Western forces in Ukraine “legitimate targets” on Thursday, days after France and the UK pledged to send troops there in the event of a peace deal. Russia has long opposed the presence of any Western troops in Ukraine.
And on Wednesday the United States forces boarded and seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the Atlantic Ocean following a weeks-long chase on the high seas which has escalated tensions with Moscow and piled further pressure on its ally Venezuela.
Russia condemned the seizure, with its transport ministry arguing “no state has the right to use force against vessels that are properly registered in the jurisdictions of other nations” under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, a treaty which the US has not signed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is yet to comment on the developments related to the tanker, which the US had previously sanctioned for carrying illicit Iranian oil.
