On Thursday, Vladimir Putin confirmed that the Russian military had fired a new type of hypersonic ballistic missile called “Orechnik”, which was in its “nuclear-free configuration”.
This is a new escalation in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The launch on the city of Dnipro of a Russian ballistic missile designed to carry nuclear warheads sparked strong international reactions on Thursday, with experts evoking a strategic message sent by Russia, which claims to have tested a new projectile.
Ukraine first mentioned “an intercontinental ballistic missile” without a nuclear warhead. Comments corrected by a senior American official, who then described an “experimental medium-range” missile. Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the end of the day, claimed responsibility for the firing of a new medium-range missile. “Our engineers called it ‘Orechnik’.”
This Friday, NATO and Ukraine announced that a meeting would be held on Tuesday in Brussels to discuss this shooting.
Several strategic missiles
As its name suggests, an intercontinental missile can strike one continent from another. Technically, according to international treaties, this means that it has a range greater than 5,500 kilometers. An intermediate-range missile has a range of 3,000 to 5,500. As for the term “ballistic”, it designates a self-propelled and guided projectile, whose trajectory depends on gravity and its speed.
On this type of range, this trajectory theoretically passes through space. Russia and the United States developed the first ones at the end of the 1950s to carry a nuclear charge. But in this case, the missile used by Moscow did not carry a nuclear charge or, according to experts, no charge at all. And it probably didn't leave the atmosphere such a short distance.
“What is interesting is the inconsistency between the probable range of the missile and distance from the target,” Héloïse Fayet, of the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri), explains to AFP.
Putin: a missile designed for nuclear power – 21/11
What missile Thursday?
Circumspective about the nature of the machine, several experts raised in the afternoon the possibility of an “RS-26 Rubezh”, the development of which had been stopped in 2018. Vladimir Putin seemed to assure that he would not is nothing. The Russian president assured that the army had “tested one of the most recent Russian intermediate-range missile systems, in this case a ballistic missile in its non-nuclear hypersonic configuration. Our missile engineers named it ' Oreshnik'”.
Fabian Hoffmann, from the University of Oslo, however, remained cautious. “We don’t yet know what it is,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I would be surprised if Russia managed to manufacture (such a device) without relying at least 90% on existing designs and without cannibalizing parts from the RS-26 (or another missile).” “It could be a variant of the RS-26 but this remains to be demonstrated,” said Héloïse Fayet.
Nick Brown, of the British private intelligence company Janes, stressed for his part for AFP that the abandonment of the development of the RS-26 “was never officially confirmed and that it could have continued under the radar” . Even if it means giving it a new name, a common method in the world of war industry, as soon as a new development appears.
Vladimir Putin assured him that “today there is no way to counter such weapons. The missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second. Air defense systems currently available in the world and the missile defense systems created by the Americans in Europe do not intercept these missiles.
Last episode of an escalation
This strike sparked strong protests from Western chancelleries, in a dangerous context of escalation around the war in Ukraine. The Kremlin, which has waved the nuclear red rag on multiple occasions since the start of the conflict in February 2022, estimated on Tuesday that expanding the possibilities of using the atomic bomb was “necessary”, in the face of what Vladimir Putin considers as “threats” from the West.
On the thousandth day of the war, Moscow published a new doctrine, announced in September, which extends the possible use of the atom in the event of a “massive” attack by a non-nuclear country but supported by a nuclear power. A direct response to Ukraine's recent attack on its territory with American ATACMS missiles, which Washington officially authorized on Sunday.
Russia is itself accused of escalation, having, according to kyiv and the West, now the support of at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers.
Political message
Experts remain unanimous on one point: this is indeed a Russian political message to the West and to kyiv. “We are on something unprecedented, and it is much more a political act than a military act. The cost-effectiveness of the attack is zero,” says Héloïse Fayet.
“This change in scale is significant,” she adds, describing “the first use by the Russians on the battlefield of a missile with a range of more than 2,000 km.”
According to her, the use of this missile “will not significantly change the situation operationally. They obviously only have very few of them and they are expensive.” For Nick Brown, the Kremlin wanted to “send an escalatory message or warning, an expensive and potentially dangerous way for Russia to seek to impress” the West. In fact, Vladimir Putin considerably raised his voice, declaring that Russia was “ready” for all scenarios and that “the conflict provoked by the West in Ukraine” was now “of a global nature”.
