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Russia’s latest attacks against Ukraine, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy said involved an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, showed “reckless nuclear-brinkmanship”, the EU’s foreign policy chief said. “Russia hit a dead-end on the battlefield, so it terrorizes Ukraine with deliberate strikes on city centres. These are abhorrent acts of terror meant to kill as many civilians as possible,” Kaja Kallas wrote on X. “Moscow reportedly using Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles – systems designed to carry nuclear warheads – is a political scare tactic and reckless nuclear brinkmanship,” Kallas said.
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Russia has now used its powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile three times in strikes on Ukraine, writes Jennifer Rankin. The massive attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed at least four people and injured about 100. “They are genuinely deranged,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram, describing Moscow’s latest strikes, which he said had hit Kyiv the hardest.
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The head of the World Health Organization said its offices in Kyiv had been damaged by debris from Russian strikes, “damaging windows on the third floor”. “This building is home to many UN agencies besides WHO. No one got injured,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
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The German foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, joined Macron in condemning the latest Russian attacks and described the use of an Oreshnik ballistic missile as “another escalation”. The UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said: “Moscow’s escalating assault on Ukrainian civilians betrays its weakness.” Cooper described scenes from Kyiv as “awful”.
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Emmanuel Macron has warned the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, a key Russian ally, against any involvement in Moscow’s war against Ukraine, a source close to the French president said. The warning was made during the first reported phone call between the two leaders since the early days of Russia’s invasion in February 2022, partly launched from Belarusian territory. Macron “stressed the risks for Belarus of allowing itself to be drawn into Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine”, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said. “He also urged Alexander Lukashenko to take the necessary steps to improve relations between Belarus and Europe,” the source added, according to Agence France-Presse.
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Russia and Belarus held nuclear drills on 18 May, against a backdrop of Kyiv escalating its drone attacks on Russia. Belarus, which borders Nato’s eastern flank, hosts Russia’s latest nuclear-capable missile, the Oreshnik.
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Ukraine’s SBU security service said its drones attacked an oil pumping dispatch station in Russia’s Vladimir region on Sunday, adding that the facility was an important node in pumping oil products south-west to Moscow and its surrounding area. “It supplies fuel to major oil depots around Moscow and to Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, and Vnukovo airports,” the SBU said in a statement on social media. It said a fire over an area spanning 800 sq metres (8,600 sq feet) was recorded after the strike. The governor of Vladimir Region, Alexander Avdeyev, later said the fire near the town of Kameshkovo had been extinguished.
