Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukrainian intelligence received data from American and European partners about Russia preparing a strike using the Oreshnik ballistic missile.
The president announced this on Telegram.
Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is checking this information, but called for responding to air alerts and using shelters whenever possible.
“We see signs of preparation of a combined strike on the territory of Ukraine, in particular on Kyiv, using various weapons. The specified medium-range weapons may be in such a strike,” Zelenskyy said.
The president also said that Ukraine is preparing air defenses to repel such Russian attacks to the greatest extent possible. He noted that the United States and European countries should not respond to Russian attacks with weapons like the Oreshnik after the fact.
“The use of such weapons and the prolongation of such a war is a global example for other potential aggressors as well. We are counting on the world's reaction and on the fact that the reaction will not be post-facto, but preventive – we must put pressure on Moscow so that they do not expand the war,” the president said.
ADDED 20:30
The US Embassy in Ukraine said it had received information about a “potentially significant airstrike that could occur anytime within the next 24 hours” in Ukraine, according to a statement on the US embassy's website.
On January 8, 2026, Lviv was hit by an Oreshnik ballistic missile. The air alert in the region was announced at 23:36. Within 10 minutes, the sounds of explosions could be heard in the city. The head of the Lviv OVA, Maksym Kozytsky, reported that the Russian army attacked a critical infrastructure facility. He later noted that laboratory tests were conducted at the site of the missile attack in Lviv. The radiation background is within normal limits. No excess levels of harmful substances in the air were detected.
The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine noted that the Russian Federation attacked the Lviv region with a medium-range ballistic missile (from the Kapustin Yar test site, Astrakhan region of the Russian Federation. The air target was moving at a speed of about 13 thousand kilometers per hour along a ballistic trajectory.
On November 21, 2024, Russia attacked the territory of Ukraine for the first time with an Oreshnik-type missile. The Dnipro River was hit.
Oreshnik is a Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that, according to the Ukrainian military, can reach speeds of over 12,300 km/h. The missile is equipped with six warheads, each of which reportedly contains submunitions. The US Department of Defense has identified Oreshnik as a modification of the RS-26 Rubezh intermediate-range missile. Russia has announced that it has launched serial production of Oreshnik missiles from 2024.