THE United Nations has summoned an emergency meeting after Ukraine accused Russia of war crimes for using a nuclear-capable missile in the Kremlin’s latest horror strikes.
The Security Council will meet on Monday to discuss the allegations from Ukraine that Putin committed “crimes against humanity” when deploying the Oreshnik ballistic missile overnight of January 8.
The Kremlin’s “unstoppable” nuclear-capable missile was among hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles used in the large-scale overnight attack.
It was only the second time the Oreshnik missile was used, deployed just hours after the Russian tyrant rejected a Donald Trump-backed peace plan to end the war.
The dreaded Oreshnik struck the city of Lviv, just 40 miles from the border with Nato member Poland in western Ukraine.
Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko has now urged residents to leave the capital due to mass heating outages which left half of the residential buildings in Kyiv without heating in sub-zero temperatures.
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In a letter to the UN Security Council, Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk called the attacks “appalling”.
“The Russian Federation has reached an appalling new level of war crimes and crimes against humanity by its terror against civilians,” he wrote.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has now confirmed the UN would hold an emergency meeting of its security council on Monday.
“The meeting will address Russia’s flagrant breaches of the U.N. Charter,” Sybiha wrote on X.
The “unstoppable” 8,000mph rocket, equipped with the hypersonic weapon, was seen lighting up the night sky in terrifying footage.
Volodymyr Zelensky urged Donald Trump to make a “clear reaction” in response to the barbaric attack.
Zelensky said: “A clear reaction from the world is needed.
“Above all from the United States, whose signals Russia truly pays attention to.”
The embattled wartime leader added: “Russia must receive signals that it is its obligation to focus on diplomacy, and must feel consequences every time it again focuses on killings and the destruction of infrastructure.”
Downing Street said that France, Germany and the UK collectively condemned the strikesbranding them “escalatory and unacceptable”.
“It was clear Russia was using fabricated allegations to justify the attack,” Sir Keir Starmer told his French and German counterparts, according to No 10.
The SBU, Ukraine’s intelligence service, said they had recovered fragments of the horrifying missile, which they described as the “brains” of the weapon.
They also announced they were treating the blitz – which marks the second time in history Russia has used the Oreshnik – as a “war crime”.
Kyiv said they had recovered parts of the bomb which will be classified as evidence and used as intelligence on the cutting-edge Oreshnik missile.
Putin’s latest savage strike also targeted civilian infrastructure, not military units, according to local investigators.
Authorities have opened a war crimes case under Article 438 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code, which covers violations of the laws and customs of war.
The hypersonic weapon – which has only been used by Putin once before – was aimed at Europe‘s largest underground gas storage facility in Stryi.
Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said: “Such a strike near the borders of the EU and Nato poses a serious threat to the security of the European continent and is a test for the transatlantic community.”
The Oreshnik, which translates to “hazelnut tree”, was fired from Astrakhan region, deep inside Russia, and took less than 15 minutes to explode over Lviv.
It comes after a separate Oreshnik was deployed to Belarus in December, where, if launched, it would have been capable of striking London in just eight minutes.
Overall, Moscow launched 242 drones and 36 missiles – including the horrifying nuclear-capable weapon – in the latest Ukraine assault.
Massive attacks were reported in Kryvyi Rih, Volodymyr Zelensky‘s hometown.
The overnight strike marks the second time in history Putin has launched the haunting Oreshnik missile.
In November 2024, the terrifying rocket pierced through Ukrainian defences in Dnipro and dropped a cluster-bomb of warheads in an unprecedented attack.
What is the Oreshnik?
THE Oreshnik is Putin’s intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) that travels at Mach 10, making interception nearly impossible.
The rocket can strike targets up to 5,000 km away, covering much of Europe.
It carries up to six independently targeted warheads.
The weapon was first used in Dnipro, Ukraine, in November 2024, marking its battlefield debut.
It is designed to dodge missile defences with unpredictable flight paths.
The Oreshnik could be armed with nuclear warheads, increasing its strategic threat.
The missile can reach up to 4,000 degrees Celsius.
Its code name, Oreshnik, means hazel tree in Russian.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies the missile was derived from the RS-26, an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.