Russia’s Oreshnik Missile Hits Near Polish Border, Raising Alarm at U.N. and in NATO

On a freezing night in early January, air-raid sirens in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv had barely begun to sound when the blasts arrived.

“There was barely any time to seek safety since explosions sounded mere minutes after the air alarm,” one resident told local reporters afterward.

Within hours, Ukrainian authorities said they had identified the weapon: Russia’s new Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, a road-mobile system designed to carry nuclear warheads across thousands of kilometers. It was only the second time the missile has been used in combat, and it landed about 60 kilometers from the Polish border.

The strike, part of a nationwide barrage overnight Jan. 8–9, drew swift condemnation at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council and sharpened debate in NATO capitals over how to respond to what Western officials called a dangerous escalation.

Nuclear-capable missile near NATO’s border

Ukraine’s air force reported a national air-raid alert late on Jan. 8 after detecting ballistic launches from Russia’s Kapustin Yar test site in Astrakhan region. Military officials later said one of those missiles followed a steep ballistic arc toward Lviv region, traveling at roughly 13,000 kph—speeds that left residents with only a few minutes to reach shelter.

U.N. political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the Security Council on Jan. 12 that Russia had launched 36 missiles and 242 drones in the overnight barrage, striking Kyiv, Lviv oblast, Odesa region and several other areas across Ukraine. She said the attack was “one of the heaviest air assaults of the new year.”

DiCarlo highlighted the use of the Oreshnik missile in western Lviv region as “only the second known use of this intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine,” noting that it is “assessed by many to be nuclear-capable” and that it struck “near the border with Poland.”

“The attack damaged gas distribution pipelines,” she said, adding that strikes on energy infrastructure in midwinter “raise serious concerns for the protection of civilians.”

The European Union’s ambassador to the U.N., Stavros Lambrinidis, told the Council the missile targeted Lviv “just 60 kilometers from the Polish border,” hitting “residential buildings and energy infrastructure.”

“This is an unacceptable escalation and a further sign that Russia is not interested in ending its war of aggression,” Lambrinidis said.

Competing claims over what was hit

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said days later that the missile had destroyed the Lviv State Aviation Repair Plant, which it described as a facility that repairs F-16 and MiG-29 fighter jets and produces drones used in strikes on Russian territory.

Ukraine has not confirmed that description. Local authorities and Ukrainian security services reported damage to gas distribution infrastructure and other civilian facilities in the region. The Security Service of Ukraine released photographs of missile debris it said came from an Oreshnik and announced a criminal investigation, calling the strike a war crime because it targeted critical civilian infrastructure in winter near the border of the European Union.

U.N. and E.U. officials similarly emphasized the civilian impact. Lambrinidis told the Council that deliberate or indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects could constitute war crimes under international humanitarian law. He said the E.U. would support efforts to document violations.

There were no immediate reports of mass casualties in Lviv from the Oreshnik strike. Ukrainian and Western analysts say that is partly because the missile appears to have been equipped with an inert (“dummy”) warhead. Independent military analysts and Ukrainian monitoring groups have assessed that in its launches against Ukraine so far, Russia has used Oreshnik with non-explosive payloads, causing damage largely through kinetic impact and shock waves.

Russia has not commented publicly on the type of warhead used.

Part of a wider campaign

The Oreshnik launch came amid a broader Russian aerial campaign that night.

In Kyiv, DiCarlo said at least four people were killed and 25 injured, including a paramedic who died in what Ukrainian officials called a “double-tap” strike—a second blast that hit first responders. The attack damaged energy facilities and residential buildings, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without heat, and also struck the premises of Qatar’s embassy.

At roughly the same time, drones hit two foreign-flagged civilian ships near Odesa on the Black Sea, according to Ukrainian officials, who said the incident underscored ongoing risks to commercial shipping and global food exports.

The assault followed a year in which civilian casualties in Ukraine rose sharply. The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission has reported at least 2,514 civilians killed and more than 12,000 injured in 2025, a 31% increase over 2024, making it the deadliest year for civilians since the full-scale invasion began.

A missile built for strategic targets

Open-source assessments describe Oreshnik as a road-mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile with an estimated range of 3,000 to 5,500 kilometers, placing it below intercontinental class but far beyond most battlefield systems. Analysts say it is derived from Russia’s earlier RS-26 “Rubezh” program and designed to carry multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) in its nuclear configuration.

President Vladimir Putin has trumpeted the system as a symbol of Russia’s advanced capabilities. Its first reported combat use came on Nov. 21, 2024, when Russia fired an Oreshnik at the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro. That launch was widely described by Western experts as a demonstration aimed at deterring deeper Western involvement in the war.

In late 2025, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said up to 10 Oreshnik systems would be stationed in Belarus, a move European governments saw as a direct signal to NATO states in central and western Europe.

NATO officials say the missile’s range, speed and potential nuclear payload make it a significant factor in Europe’s security equation, especially as the continent adjusts to the collapse of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which had banned land-based missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.

Western capitals call it a “dangerous escalation”

At the Security Council, U.S. deputy ambassador Tammy Bruce called the Oreshnik strike on Lviv “a dangerous and inexplicable escalation,” saying it underscored Russia’s willingness to use “a nuclear-capable system near NATO’s borders” while continuing to hit civilian infrastructure.

James Kariuki, the United Kingdom’s acting ambassador, described the attack as “reckless” and said it “threatens regional and international security and carries significant risk of escalation and miscalculation.”

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, speaking in Europe after the strike, said Russia was using “weapons of death and destruction” not primarily against front-line troops but against Ukraine’s energy system and cities.

“They are creating panic and death among the general Ukrainian population,” he said, arguing that the strikes showed the need to urgently supply Ukraine with more air defense systems and interceptors.

E.U. foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called Russia’s use of the Oreshnik “a clear escalation against Ukraine and intended as a warning to Europe and the United States,” urging member states to “dig deeper into their air defense stocks and deliver now” while tightening sanctions on Moscow.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the world was being “shaken by various disturbing events,” singling out Russian aggression against Ukraine and warning that prospects for peace remained distant.

The U.S. administration, which has described the strike as a “dangerous escalation,” is at the same time pushing a new American-backed peace and security framework for Ukraine, including long-term defense commitments. In Europe, NATO allies are preparing to deploy new U.S. Typhon missile batteries in Germany in 2026, a step that Russian officials have linked rhetorically to their own deployment of Oreshnik.

Fear in Lviv, and questions for Europe

In Lviv, investigators in protective gear picked through fragments of the missile in the days after the strike. Authorities repeatedly told residents that radiation levels remained normal and that there was no sign of nuclear contamination.

For many in the city, the episode underscored how little warning time they would have if such a missile were ever used with a live warhead.

Ukrainian commentators have warned that the use of a nuclear-capable missile so close to the E.U. border is intended to unsettle Western societies and parliaments. Some argue the only effective response is to bolster Ukraine’s own long-range and air defense capabilities; others fear that each new layer of escalation increases the risk of a wider confrontation.

Diplomats and military planners across Europe now face a similar calculation. The strike on Lviv showed that weapons conceived to hold distant capitals at risk are already being used on the edge of the European Union. Whether Oreshnik remains a rare tool for political signaling or becomes a recurring feature of Russia’s campaign will depend in part on how quickly—and how far—NATO and the E.U. choose to adjust their defenses in response.