What is the Oreshnik ballistic missile fired by Russia into Ukraine?
By Nick Paton Walsh, CNN
(CNN) — Russia launched an Oreshnik missile into Ukraine overnight into Friday for the second time since the full-scale war began 2022, in a strike that Kyiv and its allies say is meant as a warning for the West.
While Russian defense officials did not say where the Oreshnik hit this time, Ukrainian authorities on Friday reported several explosions and a ballistic missile strike in the western city of Lviv.
The first use of the new weapon – which can carry nuclear or conventional payloads – was to target an apparently vacant factory in Dnipro in late November 2024.
Here’s what we know about the missile.
What is the Oreshnik?
It is likely a medium-range ballistic missile, with its use so far indicating a range of 600 to 1,000 miles. US defense officials deemed the Oreshnik fired in November 2024 to be an “intermediate-range ballistic missile” or IRBM, suggesting they thought its actual range could be over 3,000 miles.
The distance from Kapustin Yar, the Russian base from which it is thought to have been fired, to Lviv, its target this week, is about 900 miles.
A distinguishing feature of the Oreshnik is its capacity to rain down multiple separate warheads from the main missile. As many as six multiple independently-targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), which may themselves contain four to six ordnances, separate from the missile as it travels at hypersonic speeds; each can be pointed at specific objects, allowing one ballistic missile to launch a larger attack.
Where does its name come from?
Oreshnik means “Hazel Tree”, based on its appearance when its multiple warheads fall to earth in streaks of fiery light. The Ukrainians called the first one fired the “Kedr” – Cedar.
US officials have suggested it might be an evolution, or a basic copy, of the RS-26 Rubezh missile first developed in 2008.
Russia and the United States are in dispute over renewing the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, intended to ban IRBMs entirely and reduce the threat of nuclear-capable missile on the European continent. The US formally withdrew from the treaty in 2019.
Russia’s first launch of the Oreshnik in 2024 came days after the Biden administration authorized Kyiv to fire US-supplied ATACMS missiles into Russia.
Can it be intercepted?
The Oreshnik moves faster than most modern missiles, at an estimated 8,000 mph (13,000 kph). Its trajectory takes it steeply upwards, out of the atmosphere, and then brings it back down again sharply, with its warheads aimed at separate targets. This makes it almost unstoppable by the air defense systems available to Ukraine.
This sort of missile was designed to carry nuclear payloads. It is rare, expensive, and harks back to the Cold War era.
The Oreshnik has only carried conventional explosives so far, but is from a missile class whose speed and capability echo the nuclear threat. It is thought the United States was notified before its first use in late 2024, to ensure it was not mistakenly assessed to be a nuclear launch.
Ukrainian experts from the Military Research Laboratory of the Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise, who examined what they said were the remnants of the first Oreshnik missile fired on Dnipro in November 2024, told CNN early last year that the missile did not appear to use much modern circuitry or show any major technological leaps forward, but relied on known designs and elements.
Why now and is it a big deal that Russia fired it?
It is a big deal as Russia has fired a nuclear-capable missile on Lviv, an hour’s drive from the border with Poland, a NATO member state. This sends a signal of the Russians’ emboldened stance to the largest military alliance in history, at a time when the US role in it has been cast into doubt.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Friday on X that “such a strike close to EU and NATO border is a grave threat to the security on the European continent and a test for the transatlantic community.”
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas echoed that sentiment, saying Friday that “Russia’s reported use of an Oreshnik missile is a clear escalation against Ukraine and meant as a warning to Europe and to the US.”
Moscow claims this attack was a response to the targeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence late last year. (The CIA has assessed Ukraine was not targeting the residence.) It is likely another instance of Russian saber-rattling – reminding its adversaries of its wider, destructive arsenal – at a time when Russia’s ally, Venezuela, is under US assault, and a sanctioned oil tanker bearing its flag was intercepted near Iceland by US forces.
The Kremlin has claimed many Oreshniks are in production and that some might be stationed in Belarus, a likely bid to raise fears its missiles could leave European cities defenseless against attack.
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