Putin threatens to hit kyiv with his powerful experimental missile “Orechnik”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he has not ruled out ordering a strike against the Ukrainian capital kyiv with its experimental Orechnik intermediate-range hypersonic missile, describing it as a terribly destructive weapon. “We do not exclude the use of Orechnik against military targets, military-industrial installations or decision-making centers, including in kyiv,” he said during a press conference broadcast on the Russian television on the sidelines of a visit to Kazakhstan.
At the request of a journalist, he also once again praised the firepower of this intermediate-range weapon capable of striking anywhere in Europe, even if it is not equipped with nuclear warheads.
“If you use several of these systems in one strike – two, three, four – then, in terms of its power, it is comparable to the use of a nuclear weapon,” he said. said. “It is not an atomic weapon because it is A- high precision and B- not equipped with a nuclear explosive charge, and does not pollute the environment. But from a power point of view, it is comparable,” said the Russian president, who had already compared this missile to “a meteorite” and the heat released at the time of the explosion at the temperature of the surface of the Sun.
Mr. Putin did not specify whether this missile was exclusively conventional or whether it could be equipped with a nuclear warhead, something he suggested last week after a test strike in Ukraine, presented as a response to the firing of American ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles on Russian soil.
