Moscow: The silent black-and-white surveillance camera video of the Russian missile attack in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro was brief but chilling: Six huge fireballs pierced the darkness and slammed into the ground at astonishing speed.
Within hours of the Nov. 21 attack on the military facility, Russian President Vladimir Putin took the rare step of speaking on national TV to boast about the new, hypersonic missile. He warned the West that its next use could be against Ukraine’s NATO allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
Putin said the missile was called the “Oreshnik” — Russian for “hazelnut tree.”
A look at the weapon, how it fits into Moscow’s battle plan and what political message Russia wants to send by using it:
What’s known about the Oreshnik?
A satisfied smile played across Putin’s face as he described how the Oreshnik streaks to its target at 10 times the speed of sound, or Mach 10, “like a meteorite,” and claimed it was immune to any missile defense system. Ukrainian military officials said it reached Mach 11.
Gen. Sergei Karakayev, head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the Oreshnik could carry nuclear or conventional warheads and has a range to reach any European target.
The Pentagon said the Oreshnik was an experimental type of intermediate-range ballistic missile, or IRBM, based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. The attack marked the first time such a weapon was used in a war.
Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles). Such weapons were banned under a Soviet-era treaty that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019.
Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate said the missile had six warheads, each carrying six submunitions. Its payload of independently targetable warheads, like a cluster of hazelnuts growing on a tree, could be the inspiration for the missile’s name.
Video of the attack appeared to show six warheads surrounded by clouds of plasma raining down in a fiery descent. The six submunitions released by each warhead apparently were unarmed but had high kinetic energy estimated to deliver a destructive force equivalent to tons of explosives.
Putin claimed the weapon is so powerful that using several such missiles — even fitted with conventional warheads — could be as devastating as a nuclear strike. It’s capable of destroying underground bunkers “three, four or more floors down,” he boasted, threatening to use it against the government district in Kyiv.
Ukraine’s Security Service showed The Associated Press wreckage of the missile — charred, mangled wires and an ashen airframe — at Dnipro’s Pivdenmash plant that built missiles when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union. There were no fatalities in the attack, and authorities haven’t described the damage to the plant. They said the missile was fired from the 4th Missile Test Range of Kapustin Yar in Russia’s Astrakhan region on the Caspian Sea.
What other missiles has Russia used?
Russia has used an assortment of missiles to pummel Ukraine since the start of its invasion in February 2022, but none had the range and power of Oreshnik.
They included subsonic long-range cruise missiles that carry about 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of explosives, enough to inflict a significant damage to Ukrainian power plants and other key infrastructure. The winged, jet-propelled cruise missiles have a range of up to 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles), able to reach all of Ukraine.
Russia also used swarms of inexpensive, Iranian-designed drones that carry only about 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives. The slow-flying drones are relatively easy to intercept, but Russia used dozens of them at a time to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses and divert attention from simultaneously launched cruise missiles.
For some priority targets, Russia has used faster and harder-hitting missiles, including the ground-launched Iskander short-range ballistic missile with a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles).
For particularly important targets, Moscow has used the hypersonic Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile. Its high speed — able to briefly reach Mach 10 — and ability to maneuver in flight helps it evade air defenses, although Ukraine claims to have shot down a few of them.
Oreshnik is even more difficult to intercept than Kinzhal. It can inflict significantly heavier damage because of its multiple high-energy warheads.
What message is Putin sending with the Oreshnik?
Putin described the Oreshnik as a response to the U.S. and U.K. allowing Ukraine to use their longer-range weapons to strike Russian territory, a move he said gave “elements of a global character” to the conflict.
“We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities,” he said.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Putin’s Security Council, said Oreshnik could reach targets in Europe within minutes, inflicting “catastrophic” damage. “Bomb shelters will not save you,” he posted on his messaging app channel.
Russian state media extolled the Oreshnik, claiming it will take just 11 minutes to reach an air base in Poland and 17 minutes to reach NATO’s headquarters in Brussels. T-shirts have appeared with images of Putin and the Oreshnik, and he was told at a briefing that a couple planned to name their daughter after the missile.
Military expert Mathieu Boulègue of Chatham House in Britain said that while the Oreshnik isn’t a game-changer on the battlefield, “in terms of psychological warfare, it works great” in serving the Kremlin’s goal to scare a Western audience.
The Nov. 21 attack came two days after Putin signed a revised version of Russia’s nuclear doctrine, which lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons. The doctrine allows for a potential nuclear response by Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation that is supported by a nuclear power.
The use of the Oreshnik was an expression of Moscow’s anger at the use of longer-range Western missiles and a signal to Ukraine and President-elect Donald Trump that Russia was going to pursue its goals, regardless of the support for Kyiv, said James J. Townsend, senior fellow at the Center for New American Security.
“This is a very powerful message being sent,” Townsend said. “It’s showing Trump how serious Russia looks on what the Biden administration has been doing and how seriously they look on and how angry they are about this type of assistance.”
Putin’s warning about potential strikes on NATO assets follows calls by Russian hawks for such attacks to force Ukraine’s allies to back down.
Unlike other Russian conventional weapons with a shorter range, Oreshnik offers the capability to launch a powerful, conventional strike anywhere in Europe, giving the Kremlin a new instrument of escalation without tapping its nuclear arsenal. There will be no way to know whether Oreshnik carries a nuclear or a conventional warhead before it hits the target.
“The enemy must understand that we are ready to take the most resolute steps and strike the territory of NATO members with conventional weapons first,” said Sergei Karaganov, a political expert who advises the Kremlin. “At the same time, we will warn them that if they respond to that attack in an escalatory way, a nuclear strike would come second, and a third wave will target American bases.”
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