Abandon the Ukrainian capital or risk being hit in a new and intense wave of attacks.
That is the warning Russia has issued the United States and other countries with diplomats in Kyiv, urging them to flee or face what it called “systematic strikes” on the Ukrainian capital.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he received a personal warning to that effect from his Russian counterpart and offered Washington’s renewed mediation in stalled talks to end the war.
European countries rejected the Kremlin’s call to leave Kyiv, vowing to stay put and framing the threat as a “sign of desperation.” Some summoned Russian ambassadors in protest.
But this threatened escalation follows a weekend bombardment that was perhaps the heaviest faced by the city since the start of the four-year war — including the use of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile.
The new warning left many residents on edge.
Lesia Homiak’s apartment shook when a missile hit within some 20 yards of her building in the city’s historic Podil district overnight Sunday. Homiak, 31, said she ran into the basement with her partner, Andriy Klen, to seek shelter.
“I have never felt anything like that in my life,” Homiak told NBC News on the phone from Kyiv.
“We came back and saw total carnage,” said Homiak, who works as an account manager at an IT company. Her apartment is now in need of major renovation, she said, with cracks in the walls, windows blown out and glass everywhere. “We are lucky to be alive.”
Moscow says more attacks like it could be coming.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned Monday that it would conduct “systematic strikes” against military targets in Kyiv, including what it called “decision-making centers.”
It said this would be in retaliation for a drone attack last week that authorities said killed 21 people, including students, at a college in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv’s armed forces have denied targeting civilians, saying they were aiming at a military unit near the town.
Ukraine has been striking deeper inside Russia in recent months, creating increasingly uncomfortable optics for the Kremlin.
Ukrainian cities, meanwhile, face near-daily attacks from Russian missiles and drones, causing extensive damage and thousands of civilian casualties.
But the Russian Foreign Ministry said things would now get more intense for the Ukrainian capital, adding that the deadly attack on the college in Luhansk has “exhausted our patience.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday refused to provide details on the frequency of potential strikes.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov raised the new threat in a call with Rubio on Monday, according to the Russian readout, informing the U.S. on behalf of Russian President Vladimir Putin of the impending “systematic and sequential strikes” on Kyiv and reiterating the call for U.S. diplomatic staff to evacuate.
U.S.-led peace talks to end the war have stalled, with President Donald Trump focused on the Iran war.
Asked about the call on Tuesday, Rubio said he was aware of the notice to all embassies, but that Lavrov was warning him personally that “Kyiv’s going to be a very dangerous place” and wanted Rubio to relay the message directly to Trump. There are no “scheduled negotiations” on Ukraine at the moment, Rubio added, but “the U.S. is always prepared to play a constructive and helpful role if that opportunity presents itself.”
Some U.S. allies responded less evenhandedly.
“We are not going anywhere!” the head of the E.U. mission in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova, wrote in a statement on Facebook, calling the warning from Russia’s Foreign Ministry “a masterpiece of hypocrisy” and an attempt to sow panic.
Such threats are not a sign of strength, she added. “They are a sign of desperation.”
France and Poland were also among Ukraine’s allies that condemned the threat and rejected the warning to flee.
A State Department spokesperson told NBC News there were no changes to U.S. embassy operations in Kyiv.
It’s not the first such threat issued by Russia against the Ukrainian capital. A similar warning was issued earlier this month in case Ukraine attacked the Victory Day military parade in Red Square.
For Homiak and her partner in Kyiv, the new threat and intense weekend bombardment left them fearful but also resigned to the reality of a more dangerous life under fire.
Klen, her partner, said the couple were not planning to leave the capital but would make sure to seek shelter inside the subway from now on. “This experience has helped to understand that,” Klen, 38, said.
For Russia’s influential military bloggers, who have been disgruntled in recent months over domestic issues and a lack of battlefield progress, the threat of intensified attacks on Kyiv was welcome but overdue.
“In theory, a month should be enough to make Kyiv uninhabitable,” wrote one prominent figure known as Fighterbomber on Telegram. “That sounds great, but now we need to put our words into action.”
Anastasiia Parafeniuk reported from Kyiv and Yuliya Talmazan from London.
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