Russia to continue testing, start mass producing new ‘Oreshnik’ missile: Putin

(MOSCOW) — Russia will continue testing and start mass producing the new “Oreshnik” missile, an intermediate-range ballistic missile that was used to target Dnipro, Ukraine, this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

“We will continue testing the latest system,” Putin said at a meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and representatives of the military-industrial complex. “It is necessary to establish mass production. We will assume that the decision on the serial production of this system has been made. As a matter of fact, it is practically organized.”

Putin said Russia will continue testing the new Oreshnik missile system, “including in combat conditions.”

“The tests were successful, I congratulate you on this. As already mentioned, we will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats that are being created for Russia,” Putin said.

“In addition to the Oreshnik system, several systems of this kind are currently in operation in Russia for further testing,” Putin added.

Russia warned the U.S. 30 minutes before the launch of its Oreshnik missile against targets in Dnipro on Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news outlet TASS.

The Ukrainian air force said it had tracked the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, along with six additional missiles, all targeting the Dnipro region. The U.S. would later specify the missile was not an ICBM, but instead a shorter-range IRBM.

The missiles were launched in about two hours, beginning at about 5 a.m. local time Thursday, and targeted businesses and critical infrastructure, but only the IRBM struck the city, Ukraine said. The six other missiles were shot down. There were no reports of casualties or significant damage, officials said.

The IRBM appeared to have been launched from the Astrakhan region, in Russia’s southwest, Ukrainian military officials said. The distance from what Ukraine said was the launch point to the strike location in Dnipro is about 600 miles, a distance shorter than what an ICBM would be expected to travel.

The experimental Oreshnik missile was based on a Russian RS-26 Rubezh missile, deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh confirmed Thursday during a briefing, without going into any other specific details. She also confirmed that the U.S. was notified “briefly” before the launch.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Oreshnik missile launch Thursday during his evening address, saying a “new ballistic missile was used” and calling it “a clear and severe escalation in the scale and brutality of this war.”

Putin, in remarks Thursday following the missile launch, said Russia has the right to use its weapons against the military facilities of countries employing their weapons against Russia.

The missile launch arrived amid concerns that the conflict between Russia and Ukraine could further escalate.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that Ukraine for the first time launched U.S.-made ATACMS missiles toward targets within Russia. An ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of Russia was struck, a U.S. official said.

The incident occurred days after U.S. President Joe Biden approved Ukraine’s use of the long-range American-made MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System — colloquially known as the ATACMS — to hit targets in Russia’s western Kursk region.

Zelenskyy would not confirm if Ukraine had used ATACMS to conduct a strike on an ammunition depot in the Bryansk region of Russia, but said Ukraine has ATACMS and “will use all of these” against Russia.

Hours after Russia said it had struck down several of the ATACMS, the Kremlin announced that Putin had updated the country’s nuclear doctrine, a move that lowered the bar for Russia to respond with nuclear weapons. Russian ICBMs are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but the IRBM fired on Thursday was not equipped with one.