The Russian Foreign Ministry explicitly urged foreigners to leave Kyiv as quickly as possible.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov communicated the impending attacks directly to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, claiming the actions are “in response to the continuing terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime” against civilians.

According to an official ministry statement, Russia's armed forces “are starting systematic strikes on facilities located in Kyiv that are used for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, as well as on centres where the corresponding decisions are being made.”

Moscow justified the escalation by citing a drone strike last Friday on a student dorm in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military rejected the accusation, stating it had actually targeted and struck an elite drone command unit in that area.

The latest Kremlin warning follows Sunday's intense bombardment, during which Russian forces fired an Oreshnik nuclear-capable hypersonic missile near Kyiv—marking its third use in more than four years of war.

Local authorities confirmed the weekend strikes killed two people and injured 91 in the capital.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy stated that around 300 sites across Kyiv were damaged in the weekend attacks, including a newly opened museum devoted to the 1986 Chornobyl nuclear disaster.

The violence spanned other regions as well; a separate Russian strike killed two people in Ukraine's Kharkiv region, while Ukrainian attacks damaged energy infrastructure in Russia's Belgorod region.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha fiercely rejected the threats, urging international allies not to submit to “Russian blackmail.”

Sybiha wrote on the social media platform X: “We are currently discussing with our partners that there is no need to give in to this Russian blackmail.”

Defying Moscow's evacuation order, the head of the EU mission in Kyiv, Katarina Mathernova, stated the warning was a deliberate attempt to spread terror and isolate the country.

“Russia wants fear. Panic. Isolation of Ukraine. It will not work,” Mathernova said on social media. “The EU is not going anywhere. We are staying in Kyiv. We are staying with Ukraine.”

Showing diplomatic solidarity, more than 70 foreign diplomats gathered in Kyiv on Monday to pay their respects to the victims, visiting the heavily damaged neighborhood of Lukyanivka.