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It may be innocently called “the hazelnut”, but this is a fig leaf disguise.
The Kremlin’s latest hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile is actually one of its most dangerous.
Vladimir Putin test-fired the “Oreshnik”, the Russian word for hazelnut tree, for the first time in combat on Thursday against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. He later boasted that it had been designed for a “decisive” strike on Britain – and added a chilling warning.
“I recommend that the ruling elites of those countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia seriously think about this,” Putin said.
So secret was the development of the Oreshnik that very little is known about it until footage emerged of its first strike.
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Flashes of startling light emanating from multiple warheads were seen raining down on Dnipro and exploding on impact in deadly synchronisation.
Initially, it was mistaken for an RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile when it was fired at Dnipro from a launch site in Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea.
The Pentagon has also described Oreshnik as a “variant” of the RS-26 Rubezh.
The grainy footage shows that Oreshnik appears to have multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles. These are separate warheads able to hit different targets, which gives one missile enormous destructive power.
Experts described it as an “experimental hybrid” missile that sits in a category between intercontinental and intermediate-range missiles. This means it has a range of around 3,000 miles, easily enough to strike Britain.
Analysing the video, Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher in the weapons of mass destruction programme for the United Nations, said that the video showed multiple warheads crashing into Dnipro at high speed.
“They all fell in a close vicinity of each other, more consistent with MRV technology, meaning the warheads were not independently targeted,” he said.
Mr Baklitskiy agreed that it was more difficult to defend against multiple warheads but each warhead would be “less potent”.
As for the apparently small explosions, Mr Baklitskiy said that this was probably due to the small payload or “no payload at all” in the warheads.
Michael Bonhert, an engineer at US think tank Rand Corporation, described it as part of Russia’s “strategic nuclear triad”, a change from the missiles that the Kremlin has been firing at Ukraine throughout the war.
“What is different is missiles that tend to be intermediate-range missiles and almost every intercontinental ballistic missile is nuclear-capable,” he said.
As well as gloating that the missile was capable of carrying both a conventional payload or a nuclear warhead, Putin dropped some more hints about the capabilities of the Oreshnik missile on Thursday, claiming that it could easily dodge anti-missile systems.
The Oreshnik is fast and stealthy too. Putin said that the missile can fly at 10 times the speed of sound and cannot be shot down.
“The modern air defence systems in the world and the missile defence systems created by the Americans in Europe do not intercept such missiles,” Mr Bonhert said.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency (HUR) said the missile could fly at 11 times the speed of sound as it released further details on the new weapon.
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It said the missile was fired from the fourth missile test range Kapustin Yar in Russia’s Astrakhan region, and flew 15 minutes before striking Dnipro. The missile had six warheads each carrying six submunitions.
Test launches of a similar missile were conducted at the range in October 2023 and June 2024, HUR said.
Mick Ryan, a military analyst and a retired Australian major general, said that by unveiling the Oreshnik with his strike on Dnipro, Putin was sending a strong message.
“This was a political strike, not a military one,” he said. “It can be used against almost any target in Europe and the United Kingdom.”
The issue for Putin, who looked more tired and drawn than usual in his video on Thursday, is that Britain’s deepening involvement in the war in Ukraine feels personal.
Under his 24-year reign, the Kremlin has kept up a stream of particularly vindictive rhetoric against Britain and has previously threatened to strike London with a nuclear missile.
Now that Ukraine has fired British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at Russia, Putin has said that he is “ready and entitled” to respond with “destructive force”. The Oreshnik could be his weapon of choice.
