Russia says it successfully tested nuclear-powered missile as Ukraine hit with more deadly strikes
By Laura Sharman, CNN, Victoria Butenko and Daria Tarasova-Markina
(CNN) — Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile and will work towards deploying the weapon, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday, which comes as Moscow launched its second deadly attack on Ukraine in two nights.
The timing of the missile test is notable, coming the same week that a potential summit with US President Donald Trump broke down, and the White House placed sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies – some of the Trump administration’s most tangible actions against Russia to date.
Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, claimed the Burevestnik missile remained airborne for about 15 hours and covered a distance of around 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles). During the test, the weapon demonstrated “its high capabilities in evading anti-missile and anti-aircraft defences,” Gerasimov said.
Meanwhile, Putin said, “We need to determine the possible ways of using it and start preparing the infrastructure for deploying this weapon,” adding that it’s a product “no one else in the world has.”
Last week, Russia also held a “planned” strategic nuclear forces drill under Putin’s supervision. The Kremlin said the drill tested staff skills and the readiness of military command-and-control systems, adding that all objectives were met.
It comes as Russia launched more than 100 drones on Ukraine overnight into Sunday, striking high-rise buildings in Kyiv as residents slept.
Strikes tear into Kyiv
A 19-year-old girl and her mother, 46, were among three people killed in air strikes on the Ukrainian capital, according to Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. A further 29 people were wounded, including seven children.
“The youngest is four years old,” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
The latest wave of violence came as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky Zelensky issued a fresh appeal for more Patriot missile defense systems, part of a broader efforts to bolster Ukraine’s defenses against Russia’s sustained aerial assault.
On Saturday night, a fire erupted at a nine-story residential building in the capital’s Desnianskyi region, where 13 people were rescued from the upper floors. Additionally, a Russian drone struck a 16-story high-rise, shattering windows from the first to the ninth floor, emergency crew said.
Natalia Zura, 49, escaped from the burning house with her daughter Maria using a fire ladder.
“We had a terrible night. We had to climb down the fire escape from the third floor. Thank you to our rescuers, our guardian angels. We are very grateful because we almost suffocated, we almost burned to death,” Zura told CNN.
Olha Motianina, 34, had left Kyiv for a nearby village with her family because of the constant bombardment. On Sunday, she returned to her home in the city to find the windows shattered from the blast.
“It’s a very sad picture. People have died, and I don’t know how to describe it. It’s very sad and affects my mental state,” she said.
Another drone struck a high-rise building in the Obolonskyi district of Kyiv, but firefighters said the site was not set ablaze.
“Every Russian strike is an attempt to inflict as much damage as possible on ordinary life,” Zelensky said on Sunday.
“This week, they’ve been striking residential buildings, our people, our children… these are the main targets for the Russians,” he added, noting that the Kremlin has unleashed nearly 1,200 drones, more than 1,360 guided aerial bombs and over 50 missiles on his nation in the past week.
More than a hundred rescuers and police officers in Kyiv responded overnight into Sunday, checking the stability of the burned out high-rises as well as clearing debris and dismantling damaged structures, the interior minister said.
Elsewhere in the city, crews continue painstakingly clearing debris from the previous night’s attack.
The magnitude of the attack and the extent of its damage was not immediately known. Klitschko did not confirm whether the buildings were directly hit or struck by falling debris from destroyed weapons.
Meanwhile, Russian air defense systems destroyed one drone heading for Moscow, the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Sunday.
Six civilians were injured in Russia’s Belgorod region due to Ukrainian strikes, according to local authorities there, including three in the city of Belgorod and three in the village of Dorogoshch.
Renewed push for Patriot missiles
Ukraine needs a constant pipeline of weapons from its allies to defend against Russian barrages of missiles and drones – often several hundred in one night. Repeated deadly attacks have underlined the shortfall in Ukraine’s air defenses.
Another overnight attack Saturday killed at least four people in Ukraine, prompting Zelensky to ask for more Patriot missile systems “so that we can protect our cities from this horror.”
Trump has been pushing for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia but those attempts have made little progress so far.
After Trump had a phone call with Putin last week, he was so convinced there was enough progress made that he announced he was heading soon to Budapest for an in-person summit.
Five days later, the summit was off and new sanctions on Moscow were on.
“It just it didn’t feel right to me,” Trump said Wednesday. “It didn’t feel like we were going to get to the place we have to get. So I canceled it.”
Since then, the Kremlin has said it was wrong to talk about the cancellation of the meeting, according to Russian state media outlet Vesti.
On Saturday, Trump struck a similarly pessimistic tone, saying he has no immediate plans to schedule a meeting with Putin and insisting that any summit will have to wait until a potential peace deal seems achievable.
“I’m going to have to know that we’re going to make a deal,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling to Asia. “I’m not going to be wasting my time. I’ve always had a great relationship with Vladimir Putin, but this has been very disappointing,” he added.
CNN’s Alejandra Jaramillo and Kosta Gak contributed reporting.
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