Russia Launches Large-Scale Overnight Barrage on Ukraine, Including Oreshnik Missile

In the early hours of Sunday, May 24, 2026, Russian forces launched approximately 90 missiles and 600 attack drones at Ukraine — almost entirely targeting Kyiv and its surrounding region — in one of the largest combined aerial assaults since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022 [1][2]. Among the weapons fired was an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), only the third time Moscow has deployed the system in combat [3]. The barrage killed at least four people, wounded more than 80, and damaged buildings in every district of the capital [4][5].

The attack came hours after Vladimir Putin ordered retaliation for a Ukrainian drone strike on a college in the Russian-occupied town of Starobilsk in eastern Ukraine [6].

The Scale of the Barrage: An Escalating Pattern

The May 24 strike dwarfs earlier large-scale Russian aerial offensives. In October 2022, the first major infrastructure-targeting wave involved 84 cruise missiles and 24 loitering munitions [7]. A November 2022 salvo, then considered the largest of the war, comprised 96 missiles [7]. By March 2024, the count had risen to roughly 151 munitions. In November 2025, a record combined strike hit Ukraine with 22 missiles and 464 drones — approximately 486 munitions total [8]. The May 2026 barrage, at roughly 690 combined munitions, represents a further escalation.

Source: Ukrainian Air Force / Reuters / BBC

Data as of May 24, 2026CSV

The composition of these attacks has shifted. Early barrages relied heavily on cruise missiles — Kh-101s launched from strategic bombers, Kalibr sea-launched variants. The more recent strikes feature a growing proportion of one-way attack drones (primarily Iranian-designed Shahed-136 variants manufactured under license in Russia) supplemented by ballistic missiles including the Iskander and, on rare occasions, the Oreshnik [1][9]. This shift toward a mixed arsenal of cheap drones saturating air defenses alongside high-speed ballistic missiles that are harder to intercept reflects a deliberate doctrinal adaptation: exhaust interceptor stocks with low-cost platforms, then punch through with weapons that outpace defensive reaction times [10].

What Is the Oreshnik?

The Oreshnik — Russian for "hazelnut tree" — is a road-mobile IRBM that U.S. officials have identified as a variant of the RS-26 Rubezh [11]. Its key specifications, according to open-source assessments and Western intelligence:

• Range: Between 3,500 and 5,470 km, depending on payload configuration. The Belarusian Ministry of Defense has cited a range of 5,000 km [11][12].
• Speed: Exceeds Mach 10 (approximately 12,300 km/h) in the terminal phase [11][12].
• Warhead: Carries multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) — a technology previously exclusive to nuclear delivery systems. Each missile reportedly carries six reentry warheads, each containing six submunitions, for up to 36 terminally deployed elements [12][13].
• Dual capability: Assessed as capable of carrying either conventional submunition payloads or low- to medium-yield nuclear warheads [13].

Putin has claimed the Oreshnik "cannot be intercepted" and that its destructive power is "comparable to a nuclear weapon" even with conventional warheads [11]. Western analysts have disputed both assertions. The CSIS Missile Threat project notes that while the Oreshnik's terminal speed exceeds the engagement envelope of most European air defense systems, the claim of nuclear-equivalent conventional damage is not supported by the physics of kinetic-energy weapons at this scale [11][14].

The battlefield utility question remains unresolved. Ukraine's intelligence service has described the Oreshnik as having "more political than military content," functioning primarily as a coercive signal to European partners rather than an effective mass-strike weapon [15]. This assessment rests partly on inventory constraints: Ukrainian intelligence reported in January 2026 that Russia possessed no more than three to four Oreshnik missiles total, with serial production planned to yield approximately five units per year beginning in 2026 [15][16].

Where the Strikes Landed

The May 24 barrage struck across Kyiv and Kyiv Oblast. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko reported damage "in every district of the city," including residential buildings, schools, and a market near government offices [4][5]. In Kyiv's Shevchenko district, a five-story residential building was hit, causing a fire and killing one person [5].

Beyond the capital, Russian projectiles struck communities in Fastiv, Bucha, Brovary, Bila Tserkva, Vyshhorod, and Boryspil — hitting residential buildings, homes, garages, utility buildings, and a warehouse [4]. The Oreshnik missile itself struck Bila Tserkva, a city of 200,000 people approximately 80 km south of central Kyiv [1][3].

Russia's Defense Ministry claimed the strikes targeted "military command and control facilities," air bases, and military-industrial enterprises [5]. Independent reporting has not confirmed damage to any military installations, while civilian damage is extensively documented in photographs and video from Ukrainian emergency services.

The Cumulative Toll on Energy Infrastructure

While the May 24 barrage targeted Kyiv rather than energy nodes specifically, it falls within a sustained campaign against Ukraine's power grid that has defined the war's later phases. Before 2022, Ukraine's installed generation capacity stood at approximately 55 GW. By 2025, only 17.5 GW remained operational. By February 2026, available capacity had fallen to approximately 11.5 GW — a loss of roughly 43.5 GW, or nearly 80% of pre-war capacity [17][18].

The occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant alone removed 6 GW from the grid [17]. According to Ukraine's Ministry of Energy, nearly 6,000 attacks have targeted the energy system since February 2022 [17]. Eighteen major combined heat and power plants and more than 800 boiler houses have been rendered inoperable [17].

During the 2025–2026 winter, Russia combined mass strikes with a tactic of "localized exhaustion" — sustained attacks on specific regional heating networks. In January 2026, during frosts reaching −20°C, attacks left millions of Ukrainians without electricity and heating [18]. In Kyiv, outages on several occasions left approximately 6,000 of the city's 11,000 multi-apartment buildings without heat, affecting an estimated 2 million residents [18]. In early February, the Darnytska combined heat and power plant was destroyed, permanently cutting heat supply to around 1,100 buildings [18].

The financial toll on the power sector exceeded $11.4 billion in documented damage by mid-2024, with estimated restoration costs approaching $30 billion [17].

The Economics of Attrition: Who Can Sustain This Longer?

The cost asymmetry between Russian munitions and Ukrainian interceptors is a central strategic question. Russian missile costs, adjusted for sanctions-era procurement prices:

• Iskander-K: 135–142 million rubles (~$1.5 million) per unit [19]
• Kh-101 cruise missile: 175–190 million rubles (~$2–2.3 million) [19]
• Kh-BD: 337 million rubles (~$4.2 million) [19]
• Shahed-type one-way attack drones: approximately $50,000 each [20]

Ukrainian interceptor costs run substantially higher for premium systems:

• Patriot PAC-3 MSE: $4.2 million per interceptor, with ballistic missile engagements often requiring two or three rounds per target [20][21]
• NASAMS AIM-9X: approximately $1 million [20]
• IRIS-T SL: approximately $485,000 [20]

Source: CSIS / Re:Russia / Ukrainian MoD

Data as of May 24, 2026CSV

This arithmetic creates a structural problem. Shooting a $4.2 million Patriot interceptor at a $50,000 Shahed drone is economically unsustainable, which is precisely why Russia floods attack corridors with cheap drones before following with ballistic missiles [10][20]. Production constraints compound the problem: PAC-3 MSE production has scaled from roughly 250 units annually in 2022 to over 600 in 2024, but global demand — driven partly by Middle Eastern deployments — still outstrips supply [21].

Sanctions have raised Russia's per-unit missile costs by an estimated 20–50%, and Moscow has relied on Chinese components and, reportedly, North Korean missile transfers to sustain production tempo [9][19]. Russia's 2026 federal budget allocates 16.8 trillion rubles — approximately 38% of all federal spending — to defense and security [22]. Missile production contracts remain active through at least 2027 [19].

A single barrage on the scale of May 24, assuming an average cost of $500,000 per munition across the drone-heavy mix, would cost Russia on the order of $300–400 million. Ukraine's interception expenditure for the same engagement — 55 missiles and 549 drones intercepted — varies widely depending on the systems used, but plausible estimates range from $200 million to over $500 million in interceptor costs alone. Neither side publishes verified per-engagement cost data.

Oreshnik Inventory and Strategic Intent

The gap between the Oreshnik's psychological impact and its battlefield availability is significant. As of January 2026, Ukrainian intelligence assessed Russia's total inventory at three to four units, with one expended in the November 2024 strike on Dnipro and another reportedly destroyed at the Kapustin Yar test site [15][16]. If those figures held, the May 2026 use may have consumed one of Russia's last available rounds, though Putin announced in August 2025 that "the first batch" had been delivered to troops [15].

Planned serial production of five units per year [16] would give Russia a modest but growing stockpile — insufficient for sustained bombardment campaigns but enough for periodic, high-profile strikes designed to demonstrate capability. Western analysts at Foreign Policy and CSIS have described the Oreshnik's deployment as primarily coercive signaling: a reminder that Russia possesses weapons European missile defenses cannot currently intercept, aimed at influencing NATO decision-making on arms transfers to Ukraine [14][15].

The counter-argument, made by analysts at the European Defence Review, is that dismissing the Oreshnik as mere signaling underestimates its operational potential if production scales [13]. With 36 submunitions per missile and a CEP (circular error probable) assessed by some analysts as under 10 meters for the individual reentry vehicles, even small numbers could threaten high-value point targets — command nodes, air defense batteries, power substations — in ways that cruise missiles cannot, given the Oreshnik's speed advantage [13][14].

Legal and Diplomatic Response

The international legal architecture for accountability has moved slowly relative to the pace of destruction. The ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in 2023 for unlawful deportation of children. In June 2024, the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber issued additional warrants for former Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Chief of General Staff Valery Gerasimov, specifically for war crimes related to directing missile attacks on electric infrastructure and inhumane acts against civilians [23][24].

Enforcement remains blocked. Russia is not an ICC member state and does not recognize the court's jurisdiction. The UN Security Council, the only body empowered to impose binding enforcement measures, has been paralyzed by Russia's veto. The sole substantive resolution on Ukraine — Resolution 2774 of February 24, 2025 — contains a single operative paragraph "imploring a swift end to the conflict" [24][25].

No state has formally invoked the UN Charter's Article 51 collective self-defense framework on behalf of Ukraine, though Ukraine itself has invoked self-defense rights since 2022. European and allied states are pursuing a workaround: a proposed special tribunal on the crime of aggression committed against Ukraine, designed to circumvent both the ICC's jurisdictional limits on aggression charges and the Security Council veto [24][25]. The European Parliament adopted a resolution in early 2026 calling for accountability mechanisms, but the tribunal remains in negotiation [24].

The Prolongation Debate

A contested question in Western policy circles is whether NATO-funded air defenses have inadvertently hardened Russia's willingness to escalate. The steelman version of this argument, advanced by foreign policy realists including scholars associated with RAND Corporation and Defense Priorities, holds that Western military aid — particularly defensive systems — removes Ukraine's incentive to negotiate while simultaneously driving Russia to deploy more extreme weapons to maintain coercive leverage [26][27].

The RAND Corporation's 2023 analysis "Avoiding a Long War" argued that the United States has a strategic interest in preventing protracted conflict, noting that some forms of aid extend hostilities without altering their trajectory [27]. Defense Priorities has argued that air defense, while "largely defensive," can prove "destabilizing in the context of an extended conflict, driving the adversary to move up the escalation ladder" [26].

Critics of this position — including the Atlantic Council, CEPA, and the International Crisis Group — counter that the argument inverts causality. Russia's escalation to hypersonic munitions and infrastructure targeting predated the delivery of advanced Western air defenses and reflects a strategic choice independent of Ukrainian defensive capacity [28]. The Atlantic Council has argued that Western "emphasis on escalation management has prolonged the war" not by providing too much aid, but too little — preventing Ukraine from building on military momentum and converting a war of movement into an attritional fight that favors Russia [28].

The empirical picture is mixed. Ukraine's interception rates improved from approximately 80% in late 2024 to roughly 90% by early 2026 [8][10], but Russia's response has been to increase volume rather than cease attacks — suggesting that air defense success may influence Russian tactics without altering strategic intent.

Second-Order Effects: Refugees, Energy Markets, and NATO Spending

Ukraine remains the world's second-largest source of refugees, with 5.3 million Ukrainians holding refugee status globally as of 2025 — behind only Syria's 5.5 million [29]. Within the EU, 4.38 million Ukrainians held temporary protection status as of January 2026, with Germany hosting over 1.23 million, Poland over 960,000, and the Czech Republic over 390,000 [30]. The Czech Republic bears the highest per-capita burden at 34.8 refugees per 1,000 residents [30].

Source: UNHCR Population Data

Data as of Dec 31, 2025CSV

If barrages of this scale become routine through winter 2026, displacement pressures will concentrate on frontline and energy-vulnerable oblasts. The EU extended temporary protection for Ukrainians until March 2027 [30], but political strain in host countries — particularly Poland, where refugee policy has become an electoral issue — could complicate renewals.

European energy markets have largely decoupled from direct Russian supply disruptions since 2022, but the destruction of Ukrainian generation capacity affects cross-border electricity trade. Ukraine was a net electricity exporter to the EU before the war; it now imports power, particularly during winter peaks. NATO's 2025 Annual Report identified energy infrastructure as a primary target in any potential Russian attack on the Alliance, prompting NATO-wide exercises on power grid defense [31].

NATO defense spending has accelerated. European NATO members and Canada spent a combined $574 billion on defense in 2025, a 20% year-over-year increase, with all 32 allies reaching the 2% of GDP benchmark [32]. The alliance is now working toward a 5% GDP target by 2035 [32]. The EU member states most exposed to sustained escalation — the Baltic states, Poland, Finland, and Romania — are already spending well above the 2% floor, with several exceeding 3% [32].

What Comes Next

The May 24 barrage establishes a new baseline. Russia has demonstrated the capacity and willingness to launch nearly 700 munitions in a single night, combining mass drone saturation with ballistic missiles that outpace most defensive systems. The Oreshnik's third combat use — regardless of whether it is primarily a coercive signal or an emerging operational weapon — expands the envelope of what Russia is willing to deploy against civilian areas.

For Ukraine, the arithmetic of interception grows more demanding with each escalation in volume. For NATO, the question is whether current defense industrial production can match the pace of Russian expenditure — and whether the political will to sustain that effort will hold through a fourth year of war and into a fifth.

The facts on the ground are stark: 43.5 GW of generation capacity destroyed, 5.3 million refugees, $30 billion in energy reconstruction costs, and a Russian defense budget explicitly structured for sustained conflict through at least 2027. The May 24 strike is not an aberration. It is the current trajectory.