Russia fires hypersonic Oreshnik at Kyiv as US-Iran deal hangs in the balance

The worst night Kyiv has seen in months

Shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday, explosions began shaking Kyiv. By the time Ukraine’s air force finished its overnight assessment, the picture was extraordinary: approximately 600 drones and 90 missiles had been fired at the capital and surrounding region, in one of the heaviest single bombardments of the war [3,7]. At least four people were killed and more than 80 injured [3,6]. Damage was recorded in every district of Kyiv, including residential buildings, a supermarket, a shopping centre, and several schools [2,7].

The most significant element was the weapon Russia chose for the attack on the city of Bila Tserkva, south of Kyiv: the Oreshnik, a hypersonic ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads [3,7]. Russia has now used the Oreshnik — which travels at roughly ten times the speed of sound and cannot currently be intercepted — three times in the conflict [6]. President Vladimir Putin originally deployed it in November 2024 and has since positioned it in Belarus, which shares borders with three NATO member states: Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland [4].

The attack was direct retaliation for a Ukrainian drone strike earlier in the week on a teacher-training college dormitory in Starobilsk, a town in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. Russia said 21 people, many of them young women, were killed and 42 wounded [8,13]. Ukraine’s military acknowledged conducting a strike in the area but said it targeted a Russian drone command unit, not civilians [13]. Forensic teams were still sifting through the wreckage Sunday [13]. Reuters, which visited the site on a Russian government-organized media trip, could not independently verify either account [13].

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described “600 drones and 90 missiles of various kinds” and said Kyiv was the primary target [3]. A market where Svitlana Onofryichuk had worked for 22 years was burned to the ground. “My job is gone, everything is gone,” she told the AP [3]. Ukraine’s National Art Museum, home to one of the country’s largest collections, was also damaged, as was the Chornobyl Museum and the Kyiv offices of Germany’s ARD broadcaster [7].

The EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas condemned the strikes as “abhorrent acts of terror” and called Russia’s use of the Oreshnik “reckless nuclear-brinkmanship.” She said EU foreign ministers would discuss escalating pressure on Moscow the following week [7]. A wave of condemnation came from Germany, Canada, Estonia and others [7].

What we still don’t know: how many of the ballistic missiles were intercepted. Zelenskyy said “not all” were stopped, but the full breakdown has not been confirmed.

Trump’s Iran deal: largely negotiated, sharply disputed

While Kyiv was burning, Washington was trying to end a different war. On Saturday, President Trump posted on Truth Social that a “memorandum of understanding” to end the three-month US-Iran war had been “largely negotiated” and would reopen the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow passage through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally flows [44]. Iran effectively closed the strait in February after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iranian territory in an operation Trump called “Epic Fury” [5,44].

The emerging framework, as described by US officials to Axios and confirmed in outline by Pakistani sources, would work in three stages: a 60-day ceasefire extension, during which the strait reopens and Iran clears its mines; a lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, allowing Iran to sell oil again; and a 30-day window for broader negotiations, potentially extendable [58,60]. Pakistan, which hosted the first round of talks six weeks ago led by US Vice President JD Vance, is seeking to host the next round and its army chief played a direct role in the most recent contacts [35,44].

But almost immediately the deal frayed at the edges. Iran’s Fars news agency — run by the Revolutionary Guards — said the strait would remain “under Iranian management,” directly contradicting Trump’s claim [16,44]. A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Tehran had not agreed to hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which the US had previously described as a non-negotiable red line [19]. Gulf stock markets surged anyway — Qatar’s main index jumped 3.2%, its biggest single-day gain since early April [10].

On Sunday Trump appeared to row back, saying he had told negotiators “not to rush” and insisting “time is on our side” [21,63]. That came after a public revolt from Republican hawks: Senator Roger Wicker called a 60-day ceasefire “a disaster” and Senator Lindsey Graham warned that Iran would be seen as “a dominant force” if it survived the war without surrendering key capabilities [63]. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also condemned the emerging agreement [35]. US lawmakers split largely along party lines over the deal’s contours [47].

For anyone tracking the energy situation: Brent crude was trading at around $104 a barrel Sunday [9] — still well below historic highs but high enough to push US gasoline prices to their highest level in four years, according to the American Automobile Association [34]. Capital Economics analyst Hamad Hussain has warned that if the strait remains closed and oil stocks keep drawing down at April’s pace, OECD inventories could hit critically low levels by end of June — potentially pushing Brent toward $130-$140 [5]. Whether this deal closes before that threshold is the number to watch.

Israel’s position is uncomfortable. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump that any deal must eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities, including removing enriched uranium from Iranian territory [21]. But Israeli security analysts, including Haaretz’s military affairs editor, say Netanyahu’s influence over Trump has visibly diminished as the war dragged on longer — and cost the US more politically and economically — than the White House expected [11,28].

Pakistan: bombed at home, mediating abroad

Pakistan is playing a striking dual role this week. Its army chief was on the phone with Trump on Saturday, brokering ceasefire language with Iran [44]. The same day, at least 20 people were killed and 70 injured when a bomb exploded near a railway station in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, as a train carrying military personnel and their families home for Eid passed through [26]. The Balochistan Liberation Army, or BLA — a separatist group that accuses Pakistan’s federal government of extracting the province’s mineral wealth without benefiting its people — claimed responsibility and said it was a suicide attack [26]. Three coaches were derailed and two overturned.

Balochistan covers nearly 44% of Pakistan’s land area but holds only about 5% of its population [26]. The BLA has attacked trains in the region before, including a hostage-taking on the Jaffar Express in March 2025. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the attack as “cowardly” — the same day he was congratulating Trump on his “extraordinary efforts to pursue peace” with Iran [26,57].

Congo’s Ebola outbreak reaches a new threshold

The WHO’s director-general said Sunday that more than 900 suspected Ebola cases, including 101 confirmed, have been identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a vast central African country already destabilized by decades of armed conflict [31]. At least 119 people are suspected to have died, mostly in Ituri province in the country’s northeast [41].

The outbreak — already declared a global health emergency — is spreading in the worst possible conditions. Two Ebola treatment centres were set ablaze last week. In one case in Rwampara, young men stormed the facility to retrieve a friend’s body; in another in Mongbwalu, a tent run by the medical NGO MSF was burned after a patient died [37,41]. The violence stems from deep mistrust: communities believe medical teams are lying about Ebola or trafficking the organs of the dead. Traditional burial customs require touching the body — exactly what Ebola response protocols prohibit [37].

Uganda has confirmed five cases, and the US has added another airport to its Ebola screening list [31]. The WHO says global spread risk remains low, but the response inside eastern Congo is under severe strain. Security conditions in Ituri were already deteriorating before the outbreak; Doctors Without Borders had assessed the situation as “catastrophic” in some areas, and nearly 1 million people have been displaced by conflict there [41].

China’s year in space and a standoff at sea

China launched its Shenzhou-23 mission Sunday evening, sending three astronauts to its Tiangong space station — the country’s own orbiting facility, built after the US excluded Beijing from the International Space Station in 2011 [82,78]. For the first time, one of the crew will spend a full year in orbit. The astronaut chosen for the year-long stay will be named later; the mission is a preparatory step for China’s goal of a crewed moon landing by 2030, in direct competition with NASA’s Artemis program targeting 2028 [78,82]. One crew member is Lai Ka-ying, the first astronaut from Hong Kong to fly on a Chinese mission.

Separately, Chinese and Taiwanese coast guard vessels spent a second consecutive day in a tense standoff near the Pratas Islands — a Taiwan-controlled atoll in the South China Sea, about 400 km from Taiwan’s main island [43]. China claimed sovereignty over the Pratas during radio exchanges; Taiwan broadcast back: “Please do not destroy peace.” The Chinese ship’s unusually long stay close to the islands, and its explicit sovereignty language, were described by a Taiwanese coast guard official as “unusual” [43]. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office did not comment.

The story nobody’s covering

New analysis published this week by the conflict-tracking organization Insecurity Insight, timed to coincide with the anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 2417, documents more than 21,400 incidents of deliberate attacks on food supply systems since 2018 — including 1,261 strikes on civilian markets, 1,909 military strikes on farmland, and 563 hits on water infrastructure for crops [18]. The data covers 15 countries and documents a clear upward trend. The Palestinian territories lead with 9,013 recorded incidents, followed by Yemen with 1,863 and Sudan with 1,605 [18]. The resolution being commemorated was supposed to make the deliberate starvation of civilians a recognized war crime requiring international response. The data suggests it has had almost no deterrent effect. No major English-language outlet covered the report’s release this week as a standalone story — it appeared only as background context in Gaza and Sudan coverage [18].