Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv hit by hypersonic ballistic missile as allies condemn ‘reckless escalation’

French president Emmanuel Macron and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko spoke by phone on Sunday to discuss regional issues and Minsk’s relationship with the European Union, as well as with Paris, officials said.

The conversation is the first such direct contact between the two leaders since the invasion of Ukraine by Lukashenko’s closest ally Vladimir Putin in February 2022.

“Macron emphasised the risks for Belarus if it allows itself to be drawn into Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine,” a source told AFP.

“He also called on Alexander Lukashenko to take the necessary steps to improve relations between Belarus and Europe,” they added.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said not all the ballistic missiles fired by Russian forces were intercepted and that most of the strikes hit Kyiv, which was the primary target of the attack.

The latest combined attack included 600 strike drones and 90 air, sea and ground-launched missiles, according to Ukraine’s Air Force. Ukrainian air defences destroyed and jammed 549 drones and 55 missiles. Around 19 missiles failed to reach targets, the Air Force said.

The attack and the apparent interception failures underscored Ukraine’s chronic shortage of air defence missiles capable of downing ballistics.

Kyiv relies heavily on US Patriot air defence systems to intercept such weapons, but interceptor missiles remain in critically short supply and are among Ukraine’s most urgent requests to its Western partners.

Developing a domestically produced alternative has become a top priority for Ukraine’s defence ministry, though doing so will require significant time and funding.

By saturating Kyiv with large numbers of ballistic missiles on Sunday, Russia may also be seeking to deplete Ukraine’s limited stocks ahead of what could be an even more intense wave of attacks this summer.

Just this weekend, Putin launched 600 drones in retaliation for what Moscow claimed was a Ukrainian drone strike on a school in the Russian-controlled Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

But now these light aircraft threaten to spread the deadly war into mainland Europe, with experts claiming Putin has found a new way to agitate the West.

Russia uses hypersonic Oreshnik missile in a rare deadly strike on UkraineRussia used the powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile during a mass drone and missile attack on Kyiv on Sunday that killed at least two people.

It was only the third time that Russia has used the Oreshnik missile against Ukraine since the war began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The Oreshnik has a ⁠range of several thousand kilometres.

The previous two strikes had hit major cities, but Volodymyr Zelensky said this one had struck Bila Tserkva, a city of 200,000 people that lies about 64km (40 miles) from the outskirts of Kyiv.

The Oreshnik’s warhead appears to have split into 36 submunitions, according to a review of Reuters footage of the strike by Rollo Collins, an investigator at the Centre for Information Resilience, an open-source investigation organisation.

Moscow said it had used Oreshnik, Iskander, Kinzhal and Zircon missiles in retaliation for Kyiv’s strikes on civilian targets in Russia.

The UK, France and other Nato states have blocked a plan under which each member would offer 0.25 per cent of their GDP to military aid for Ukraine, an alliance source said.

A Nato source aware of the member states not keen on backing the proposal said the primary opponents were the UK, France, Canada, Italy and Spain, reported The Telegraph.

“They’re not very enthusiastic about the idea,” they said.

Earlier, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte had said that the proposal would likely be rejected.

“I don’t think this one will be accepted because there’s a lot of opposition against this fixed 0.25,” he said.

An RAF jet carrying the defence secretary had its signals jammed as it flew near the Russian border this week.

John Healey was travelling back to the UK from Estonia, where he had been visiting British soldiers, when the electronic attack happened, according to The Times.

It is thought Russia was behind the incident on Thursday, which meant that smartphones and laptops were unable to connect to the internet and pilots had to use a different navigation system as the plane’s GPS was disabled for the entire three-hour flight.

It is not known if Mr Healey was deliberately targeted, but the flight path was visible on aircraft tracking websites, the newspaper reported.

Energy infrastructure was damaged in a massive missile attack on Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, including the city of Belgorod, local officials said this morning.

There were ⁠no casualties but power and water supply were interrupted, Interfax news agency reported. ‌It ​did not ‌provide ⁠further details.

Some locals said they had no choice but to flee Kyiv after Sunday’s attack, one of the worst so far on the capital since the war began.

“It was a terrible night, and there had never been anything like it in the entire war,” said Kyiv resident Svitlana Onofryichuk, 55, who had worked for 22 years in the market that was damaged.

“I am very sorry that I have to say goodbye to Kyiv now, I am not staying there anymore, there is no possibility,” she added.

“My job is gone, everything is gone, everything has burned down.”

Yevhen Zosin, 74, a Kyiv resident who witnessed the attack, said the moment he heard the explosion he rushed to grab his dog.

“Then there was another explosion and she and I were thrown back like a pin by the shock wave. We both survived, she and I. My apartment was blown to pieces,” he said.

In Kyiv’s Shevchenko district, a five-story residential building was hit, which caused a fire, and one person was killed, Ukraine’s state emergency service reported.

A school building was damaged by an attack while people sheltered inside, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Damage was recorded in 50 locations across several districts of the capital, including residential buildings, shopping centres and schools, Ukraine’s emergency service said in a Telegram post.

Fires continued to rage into the morning, complicating rescue efforts as buildings collapsed from the blasts.

Finland’s president Alexander Stubb said he is open to representing Europe in Ukraine peace talks if he is asked.

“If you ask, it’s probably something that can’t be answered negatively,” Stubb told Yle, Finland’s public service broadcaster.

Ukraine is seeking active communication channels to end the war with Russia as US-brokered peace talks have stalled amid the conflict in the Middle East.

Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said Ukraine has asked Europe to help with the process of an airport ceasefire, a limited truce on attacks on airport facilities so that both nations can continue their air travel safely.

“We probably need a new role for Europe in our peace efforts,” Sybiha has said.

Nato’s joint military exercises on the London Underground are a reminder that the UK’s soft targets are underprotected and underfunded – even as our enemies are looking more dangerous than ever.