It is the third time that Russia has presented to society the star of its arsenal and, as on this occasion, it also left behind what it was designed for: destruction. The Oréshnik, whose name in Russian means ‘hazel’, is a next-generation hypersonic ballistic missile that the Russian army used for the first time on November 21, 2024, during the attack on a weapons factory near the Ukrainian city of Dnipro (southeast). The second attack took place on January 9, 2026, against the Lviv province (west).
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The projectile is a cutting-edge deterrent against NATO, assured Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of 2024, when he signed with his Belarusian ally, Alexander Lukashenko, the deployment of this infernal device on Belarusian territory.
Moscow has used the weapon against Kyiv in retaliation for the Ukrainian attack on Lugansk on Friday
Moscow says the missile is a new system, not an upgrade of a Soviet weapon, as described by the United States Department of State. A Putin order drove its creation in 2023.
The projectile has an intermediate range, meaning it can strike targets at a distance between 3,000 and 5,500 kilometers. The head of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, Sergey Karakayev, was quick to point out that it can reach any point “across Europe” thanks to its ability to evade the most modern defense systems and at a speed of Mach 10, that is, ten times the speed of sound or about 3 kilometers per second. Putin even called it “indestructible.”
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Russia has used the Oréshnik to punish Ukraine after a Kyiv attack that Moscow considered especially damaging to Russia. The 2024 attack on Dnipro was retaliation for the use of American ballistic missiles (ATACMS) and British cruise missiles (Storm Shadow) against Russian territory. The use of the missile in Sunday’s attack on Kyiv is Moscow’s way of responding to a Ukrainian drone attack on a student residence in Starobilsk, in the Luhansk province, which Russia says caused 21 deaths and which Ukraine denies.
After using the Oréshnik in the attack on Dnipro, Putin ordered the missile to be “mass-produced.” Experts say it could carry nuclear weapons. The Russian leader said it does not carry them because it does not need to. If used in a massive attack along with other long-range missiles, he explained, it can cause the same effect as atomic bombs without being a weapon of mass destruction. “It has no nuclear warhead, but it is highly accurate,” he stated.
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