Ukraine is bracing for a “significant air attack” in the next 24 hours involving Russian hypersonic missiles, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Saturday.
“We are seeing signs of preparation for a combined strike on Ukrainian territory, including Kyiv,” Zelensky wrote on X at 6:45 p.m. local time.
“Act responsibly on air-raid alerts, starting this evening.”
In a security alert, the US Embassy in Kyiv cautioned: “The embassy, as always, recommends US citizens be prepared to immediately shelter in the event an air alert is announced.”
The warning comes a day after Russian dictator Vladimir Putin ordered his military to prepare retaliation options for a Ukrainian drone strike on a dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region.
Russian state media claimed 18 students were killed and dozens injured, mostly young women, with three still trapped under the rubble Saturday.
Ukraine’s military denied responsibility for the attack, saying it had struck only a drone command unit in the area.
For Moscow, one of the options being prepared involves the ferocious Oreshnik missile — a hypersonic weapon traveling at more than 10 times the speed of sound that Putin once boasted was impossible to intercept.
The Oreshnik has been fired only twice before — and European leaders have condemned its use as “escalatory and unacceptable.”
Zelensky, in his tweet, issued a plea: “Russian madness truly knows no bounds, so please protect your lives — use shelters.
“This war must be ended — we need peace, not some missiles satisfying the sick ambitions of one individual.”
Meanwhile, overnight Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least five and injured 62 others, local authorities reported.
Ukraine struck the Sheskharis oil terminal —one of the largest on the Black Sea — which caught on fire overnight, as Kyiv tries to decimate the Kremlin’s oil export revenue.
Kyiv also slammed an oil depot and crude oil tanker part of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” in Novorossiysk, setting the complex ablaze and threatening to take up to one million barrels per day of Russian oil exports out.
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It all comes as Secretary of State Marco Rubio admitted Friday the US-mediated peace talks between Ukraine and Russia have not been “fruitful,” and are effectively on pause.
“The peace negotiations … they were not fruitful, unfortunately,” Rubio said speaking to reporters.
“We just, over the last few months, sort of sensed that there wasn’t a lot of progress being made … we hope that will change because that war can only end with a negotiated settlement.”
He added: “If someone else would like to handle it, they should,” he answered when asked whether Europe should take over the mediation efforts.
With Post Wires
