Russia Launches Third Oreshnik in Saturation Strike on Kyiv; Cabinet of Ministers and Foreign Ministry Damaged
Kyiv, 24 May 2026
Key points
- Russia launched the third operational use of the RS-26 "Oreshnik" intermediate-range ballistic missile overnight on 23–24 May, anchoring a combined 690-weapon saturation strike on Kyiv that damaged the Cabinet of Ministers, the Foreign Ministry, the National Bank of Ukraine and central civilian infrastructure across more than 40 sites
- Centre for Information Resilience review of Reuters footage indicates the Oreshnik warhead split into 36 submunitions on impact near Bila Tserkva, approximately 80 km south of Kyiv
- Cumulative 48-hour aerial-weapons volume reached 1,057 with a 367-weapon second wave overnight 24–25 May (standard cruise-and-drone composition); intercept rates approximately 91.5% drones, 61% missiles
Russia launched the third operational use of the RS-26 "Oreshnik" intermediate-range ballistic missile overnight on 23–24 May, anchoring a combined 690-weapon saturation strike on Kyiv that damaged the Cabinet of Ministers building, the Foreign Ministry, the National Bank of Ukraine and central civilian infrastructure across more than 40 sites.
Ukraine's air defences neutralised 604 of the 690 weapons (55 missiles and 549 drones); the residual 16 missiles and 51 drones hit central locations across Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast. Casualties recorded on the first night: 2 killed and 87 wounded in Kyiv, with two additional dead in Kyiv Oblast. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha characterised the damage to the Foreign Ministry as the first sustained since the Second World War. The Russian Oreshnik impact at Bila Tserkva, approximately 80 kilometres south of Kyiv, reportedly produced a 36-submunition warhead pattern per a Centre for Information Resilience review of Reuters footage.
A 367-weapon second wave followed overnight 24–25 May, bringing the cumulative 48-hour aerial-weapons volume to 1,057 — the densest two-night barrage of the full-scale war. The second wave composition (no Oreshnik, no Kinzhal, no Zircon — a standard cruise-and-drone cadence) suggests the IRBM/hypersonic concentration of night one was the political-signalling moment, with standard saturation as the operational follow-through. The Russian Foreign Ministry on 25 May described an earlier Ukrainian strike on the Starobilsk College dormitory as "the last straw" and announced a "systematic series of strikes" targeting UAV design and manufacture facilities, with explicit warnings to foreign diplomatic personnel to evacuate Kyiv.
The 36-submunition OSINT finding reframes the Oreshnik as a credible area-effect weapon and complicates Ukrainian and NATO air-defence calculus, pairing the saturation strike with the 18–21 May Russia–Belarus nuclear forces exercise tracked separately. The political response from Kallas, von der Leyen, Macron, Merz, Meloni, Costa and Carney is sequenced against unchanged transatlantic silence — no White House statement on the Oreshnik launch had issued by close of European day on 25 May, contrasting with the 9 January Lviv Oblast strike, which drew a Tammy Bruce statement within 48 hours. The signalling architecture was first surfaced in Signal No. 67.
Related · Third Oreshnik on Kyiv — strike and forensics
Ukrainian forensics on Oreshnik recovered from Bila Tserkva: all components Russian or Belarusian (29 May 2026)
Sources: Ukrainian Air Force, Office of the President of Ukraine, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Russian Ministry of Defence, Centre for Information Resilience.
First reported in Signal No. 67, 25 May 2026.