Russia has launched a new type of large missile in a strike on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, in retaliation to Ukraine hitting targets in the former Soviet Union using missiles built by the US and the UK.
The Russian Aerospace Forces’ launch of the new missile, called Oreshnik (meaning hazelnut tree), occurred at around 0300 GMT on 21 November. It appears to be a shorter-ranged derivative of the 6,000 km RS-26 Rubezh Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). Its range is estimated to be around 4,500 km. Oreshnik uses a Mach 11+ hypersonic glide upper stage to deliver multiple non-individually targeted warheads. It is thought that six of these, containing additional submunitions, were used on Dnipro where they were seen to strike the ground at high velocity.
Courtesy: BFBS Forces News
Oreshnik was launched from the military base in Yapustin Yar, Russia, 800 km from Dnipro in western Russia. Using a hypersonic glide stage would allow the range to be reduced via multiple S-turns that act as detours to the flight path. Its cruise/shallow dive altitude of around 80 km gives little radar warning time when compared with high-arcing ballistic missiles, which often reach an apogee of more than 1,000 km. This, along with its hypersonic speed and manoeuvrability, makes it hard to shoot down.
Given that Oreshnik can carry nuclear warheads, NATO was probably warned of the launch to prevent any misunderstanding. Notably, US diplomats decided to evacuate the US Embassy in Kyiv (Kiev) just before the strike, presumably lest it was the target. British diplomats in the UK embassy chose to stay put.
Comment by David Todd: It was expected that Russia would retaliate to missiles, such as the 300 km range ballistic US Army Tactical Missile Systems (Atacms) and the British air-launched 550 km subsonic Storm Shadow, fired on mainland Russia. This is because NATO has been accused of using US imaging and radar satellites to provide Ukraine with missile targeting information. Consequently, there have been calls from within Russia to shoot down such satellites.
Russia has been accused of doing something similar. It is allegedly helping Houthi rebels use anti-ship ballistic and other missiles, supplied by Iran, on western commercial and naval ships.
