The new ballistic missile fired by Russia struck a military-industrial facility in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, but its real mission was delivering a deadly new message to NATO
The new ballistic missile fired by Russia struck a military-industrial facility in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, but its real mission was delivering a deadly new message to NATO.
Hours after Thursday’s strike touched off a debate over whether the Ukrainian plant was hit by an intercontinental ballistic missile, President Vladimir Putin made a rare and surprise appearance on Russian television to clear up the mystery.
He described it as a new, intermediate-range ballistic missile that raced to its target at 10 times the speed of sound.
“Modern air defense systems that exist in the world and anti-missile defenses created by the Americans in Europe can’t intercept such missiles,” Putin declared in an icy and menacing tone.
The attack marked the first time that such a missile was used in the war — or in any conflict.
The dramatic events came in a week of soaring tensions as Ukraine struck targets in Russia with American-made longer-range missiles after the U.S. eased restrictions on their use and Putin responded by lowering the threshold for using Moscow’s nuclear arsenal.
Putin said the missile was called “Oreshnik,” which in Russian means “hazelnut tree,” and that this first combat test of it “has gone successfully.”
He said in July that Russia would start producing intermediate-range missiles to “mirror” U.S. plans to deploy such weapons. In his speech Thursday, he said Russia developed Oreshnik in response to the U.S. development and deployment of missiles with a similar range.
Intermediate-range missiles, or IRBMs, can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles). Ukrainian military officials said the missile was launched from the Russian region of Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, 800 kilometers (500 miles) to the east.
While Russia has launched cruise missiles at Ukraine from even longer ranges, the new intermediate range missile marked the first such use of this kind of ground-launched ballistic missile, which can carry a much heavier conventional payload and could also be fitted with multiple nuclear warheads.
