Russia strikes Ukraine, calling it retaliation over alleged attack on Putin's residence

Russian forces launched 36 missiles and 242 drones at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force announced on Friday, while Moscow called it a retaliatory attack targeting facilities linked to Kiev’s military-industrial complex and said it included its hypersonic Oreshnik missile.

Ukrainian authorities reported four deaths and at least 25 injuries in Kiev.

Among the wounded were medical personnel, rescue workers and a police officer, authorities said. The attack affected multiple districts of the capital, including Darnytsia, Dnipro, Desnianskyi, Pechersk, Shevchenkivskyi, Holosiivskyi and Sviatoshynskyi.

According to authorities 19 high-rise buildings were damaged, along with an embassy building, a kindergarten, a tram depot, an unfinished residential tower, several vehicles, a supermarket and a gas station.

The Ukrainian air force claimed that its air defence systems had downed 226 drones and 18 missiles.

Moscow says attack in retaliation for alleged strike on Putin’s residence

The Russian military, meanwhile, said it had fired its hypersonic Oreshnik missile at a target in Ukraine as part of what it said was an overnight strike on energy facilities and drone manufacturing sites there.

The defence ministry said in a statement that the strike was a response to an attempted Ukrainian drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin's residences at the end of December.

Kiev has called the Russian assertion that it tried to attack the residence, in Russia's Novgorod's region, "a lie."

US President Donald Trump, who is pushing the two sides to agree to a peace deal, said he did not believe the strike happened.

The governor of Ukraine's western Lviv region had earlier said that a Russian attack had struck an infrastructure target, which unverified social media reports said was a massive underground gas storage facility.

It could not be verified.

Ukrainian media had quoted the Ukrainian Air Force as saying that a ballistic missile had been used in the strike which had been travelling at a speed of nearly 13,000km per hour.

Moscow first fired an Oreshnik – Russian for hazel tree - against what it said was a military factory in Ukraine in November 2024. On that occasion, Ukrainian sources said the missile was carrying dummy warheads, not explosives, and caused limited damage.

Putin has said that the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile is impossible to intercept because of speeds more than 10 times the speed of sound and 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 Oreshnik's capabilities. One US official said in December 2024 that the weapon was not seen as a game-changer on the battlefield.

Russian strike on Ukraine a 'test' for Kiev allies: Ukraine foreign minister

Ukraine said on Friday that Russia's overnight drone and missile attack posed a threat to Europe and was a "test" for Kiev's allies.

“Such a strike close to (the) EU and NATO border is a grave threat to the security on the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community. We demand strong responses to Russia's reckless actions," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on social media.

"It is absurd that Russia attempts to justify this strike with the fake 'Putin residence attack' that never happened," Sybiha added in his statement, describing the Russian version of events as Putin's "hallucinations."

“We are informing the United States, European partners, and all countries and international organisations about the details of this dangerous strike through diplomatic channels”, he said.