“A meteorite”. This is the comparison chosen by Vladimir Putin, Thursday during a continental summit in Astana, to describe the “Orechnik” missile. After launching it for the first time on Ukrainian territory on November 21, in response to Ukrainian bombings in Russia using American ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles, the Russian president threatened to use this weapon again but for hit kyiv this time. He also announced that its series production had “started”. Here is what we know about this hypersonic missile, symbol of the new escalation between Russia and Ukraine's allies.
What are the characteristics of the missile?
Orechnik, which means “hazel” in Russian, is according to the Kremlin an intermediate-range missile, which can reach targets between 3,000 and 5,500 km. It is designed to carry nuclear warheads. The commander of the Russian strategic missile forces, Sergei Karakayev, indicates that the “massive use” of this missile “would be comparable to the use of a nuclear weapon”.
Fired “in its non-nuclear hypersonic configuration”, as was the case on November 21, it can reach the speed of Mach 10, “i.e. 2.5 to 3 km per second”, which would amount to approximately 12,350 km/ h.
“The temperature of the impacting elements reaches 4,000°C,” Vladimir Putin also boasted, almost as much according to him “as on the surface of the sun”, between “5,500 and 6,000 degrees”. It would also be equipped with maneuvering charges, which would further increase the difficulty of interception. A video of the Russian launch on November 21 showed six successive powerful flashes falling from the sky at the time of the attack, which means, according to the Ukrainian intelligence service (GUR), that the missile “was equipped with six warheads”.
What damage during its first use?
On November 21, the hypersonic missile struck the city of Dnipro at night. The strike caused no deaths and relatively limited material damage. But the Russians were quick to clarify that, that night, Oreshnik had been fired without a nuclear warhead.
The distance between the Russian region of Astrakhan, from where the missile was fired, and the Pivdenmash (formerly Yuzhmash) satellite manufacturing plant, which it hit in Dnipro (east-central Ukraine), is approximately 1,000 km. “The flight time” between launch and impact “was 15 minutes,” the GUR then indicated on Telegram.
Still according to the GUR, the speed reached by the missile “on the final part of the trajectory” was 11 Mach (approximately 13,600 km/h), i.e. a speed higher than that put forward by Vladimir Putin.
What possible threats with Orechnik?
On Thursday, Vladimir Putin repeated “not ruling out” using the Orechnik missile to attack “decision-making centers”, including in kyiv. “The Orechnik can threaten almost the whole of Europe,” notes Pavel Podvig, researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (Unidir) in Geneva, in an interview with the media Ostorozhno Novosti .
Since its range does not exceed 5,500 km, it does not fall into the category of intercontinental missiles. But, if fired from the Russian Far East, it could, theoretically, hit targets on the west coast of the United States.
Given its speed and reach, Orechnik could reach several European capitals very quickly. If it were fired from the Kapustin Yar test site, the base from which the missile launched on Dnipro on November 21, it would reach Warsaw in 12 minutes, Berlin in 15 minutes, and London and Paris in 20 minutes.
Can it be stopped by anti-aircraft systems?
“The air defense systems currently available around the world and the missile defense systems created by the Americans in Europe do not intercept these missiles. This is excluded,” welcomed the Russian president. Information that Western leaders have not yet commented on.
The THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) anti-missile shield, developed by the United States and considered one of the most advanced systems in the world, could well be ineffective against Orchenik. According to the specialized media Futura, this system, used in particular by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel since the start of the war in the Middle East, can hit targets at high altitude, in particular short-, medium- or short-range ballistic missiles. intermediate. It flies at Mach 8.2, a speed of approximately 10,000 km/h… lower than that of Orchenik.
A replica of an old model
The Orechnik “is based on the Russian model of the RS-26 Roubej intercontinental ballistic missile”, itself derived from the “RS-24 Iars”, explained the deputy spokesperson for the Pentagon, Sabrina Singh, after its first use.
The RS-26 Roubej armament program, the first successful test of which dates back to 2012, was frozen in 2018, according to the Russian state agency TASS, due to lack of means to carry out this project “simultaneously” with the development of new generation Avangard hypersonic systems, supposed to be able to reach a target almost anywhere in the world.
