Russia’s newly battle-tested missile is impervious to Western air defenses and can reach European capitals within minutes, former President Dmitry Medvedev has claimed.
“Europe is wondering what damage the system can cause if the heads are nuclear, whether it is possible to shoot down these missiles and how quickly the missiles will reach the capitals of the Old World,” Medvedev posted to Telegram on Sunday. “The answer: the damage is unacceptable, it is impossible to shoot down with modern means and we are talking about minutes.”
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that his forces had struck a factory in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a new, medium-range ballistic missile dubbed “Oreshnik.” The strike, originally reported by Ukraine as an intercontinental ballistic missile, was conducted with “nuclear-free hypersonic equipment,” according to the president. However, the capabilities of the now combat-tested missile has sparked concerns about the potential threats to Ukraine’s allies if it were equipped with nuclear warheads.
“Bomb shelters will not help,” Medvedev said on Sunday. “So the only hope is that kind Russia will warn about launches in advance. Therefore, it is better to stop supporting the war.”
The launch of the hypersonic missile has already sounded alarm bells among Ukraine’s allies, with NATO reportedly convening an emergency meeting for Tuesday to discuss the escalation of the conflict and the potential new threats to European nations.
On November 24, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine’s Security Service and Internal Affairs Ministry had provided fragments of the Oreshnik to Western news agencies, and that the country would work with its allies to “to find a response together to this latest Russian escalation.”
Countering the claim made by Medvedev, he added: “The world has air defense systems capable of countering such threats. Everyone must focus on this. Russia must feel that every step it takes to expand the war has consequences for it.”
The employment of the Oreshnik came in apparent response to the authorization for Ukraine to employ American and British missile systems against military targets inside Russia, a long-standing request by Zelensky. Kyiv has already used U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Franco-British Storm Shadow cruise missiles on military targets within Russia.
In his Thursday address, in which he announced the use of the Oreshnik missile, Putin said that the country would “determine the targets during further tests of our advanced missile systems based on the threats to the security of the Russian Federation.”
“We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities, and in case of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and in mirror-like manner,” Putin said.
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