President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that on the night of May 24, Russia used the Oreshnik ballistic missile against Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region. This is one of the few documented cases of this type of weapon being used against Ukraine.
According to Zelensky, the strike hit a city with a population of over 200,000 people. The President reported destruction and casualties, though detailed casualty figures are being clarified. Local infrastructure sustained damage — the authorities did not disclose specific targets for security reasons.
The Oreshnik is a Russian hypersonic ballistic medium-range missile that Moscow first used against Ukraine in November 2024 in an attack on Dnipro. The missile travels at a speed that makes it impossible to intercept with existing air defense systems, including Patriot. It carries a cluster warhead with multiple warheads — each striking a separate target within a radius of several hundred meters from the target.
The strike on Bila Tserkva is not a random choice of a suburb. The city is located 80 kilometers from Kyiv and has a developed industrial zone. If Russia systematically uses the Oreshnik against cities in the 100 km zone around the capital, this will change the logistics of evacuation and the placement of production facilities that Ukraine is relocating to the west.
The use of the Oreshnik raises a question that still has no answer: will Ukraine receive technologies or systems capable of neutralizing this type of weapon — and if so, under what specific conditions will allies agree to transfer them?
