Russia unleashed a huge missile and drone attack on Ukraine’s capital early Sunday morning, with explosions rattling buildings for hours and igniting several fires throughout the city.
The bombardment damaged two entryways to the subway system — which is used as an underground refuge for thousands of people during air attacks — including in a strike on or near Kyiv’s central Independence Square, known as the Maidan and a symbol of the country’s resistance to Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine had warned that Russia planned to launch an Oreshnik, a type of intermediate-range ballistic missile specifically designed to carry nuclear warheads. Russia had used these missiles twice previously on Ukraine — first in 2024 and then in January — but with dummy devices in place of explosives.
Those earlier attacks were seen as a way to intimidate Ukraine or Western allies, rather than to inflict significant damage. The Oreshnik is fired as a form of nuclear saber rattling, as a political tool rather than an effective weapon.
It was unclear early Sunday whether the Oreshnik had been launched this time. The missile releases multiple warheads while in flight and they streak quickly on steep trajectories that American Patriot air defense systems cannot intercept. Reports from Bila Tserkva, a town about 50 miles south of Kyiv, suggested the characteristic, fast-moving flurry of warheads had landed there.
Though damage has been limited in past strikes, for Ukrainians, the recurring use of the missile is a harrowing, nerve-rattling normalization of the use of a doomsday weapon from Russia’s nuclear-capable arsenal.
The volley of drones and missiles that flew into Kyiv early Sunday appeared to cause extensive damage. As the sun rose, columns of smoke were visible at several spots on the skyline. Ukrainska Pravda, a Ukrainian news outlet, reported that a strike had buried the entryway at a bomb shelter at a school, trapping people inside.
Before Russia used the Oreshnik nuclear-capable missile in past strikes, it had warned the United States. Mr. Zelensky, in his own warning to Ukrainians that Russia was preparing a large-scale attack that could include the missile, said that U.S. and European nations had informed Ukraine of Russian plans to launch the missile.
“We are drawing the attention of our partners in the United States and in Europe to the fact that the use of such weapons and the prolongation of this war also sets a global precedent for other potential aggressors,” Mr. Zelensky wrote in his warning to Ukrainians, which was posted on social media on Saturday.
The two previous attacks with this type of missile hit the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine and a site in western Ukraine near the Polish border.
The attack early Sunday followed setbacks on the battlefield for Russia and a humiliating and costly recent run of successful Ukrainian long-range drone attacks on facilities for exporting oil, the lifeblood of Russia’s economy. Russia scaled back its annual Victory Day parade on Red Square, in Moscow, earlier this month amid worry of Ukrainian drone attacks.
Andrew E. Kramer is the Kyiv bureau chief for The Times, who has been covering the war in Ukraine since 2014.
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