hydrothermal synthesis of the ruthenium oxides Ca 1.5 Ru 2 O 7 , SrRu 2 O 6 , and Ba 2 Ru 3 O 9 (OH) is reported. Ca 1.5 Ru 2 O 7 is a defective pyrochlore containing Ru V/VI ; SrRu 2 O 6 is a layered Ru V oxide with a PbSb 2 O 6 structure, whilst Ba 2 Ru 3 O 9 (OH) has a previously unreported structure type with orthorhombic symmetry solved from synchrotron X-ray and neutron powder diffraction. SrRu 2 O 6 exhibits unusually high-temperature magnetic order, with antiferromagnetism persisting to at least 500 K, and refinement using room temperature neutron powder diffraction data provides the magnetic structure. All three ruthenates are metastable and readily collapse to mixtures of other oxides upon heating in air at temperatures around 300-500 8C, suggesting they would be difficult, if not impossible, to isolate under conventional high-temperature solid-state synthesis conditions.