This week, Russia launched a missile attack on Dnipro, Ukraine, reportedly using a new medium-range ballistic missile named ‘Oreshnik’, as confirmed yesterday by President Putin. Putin stated that the missile attack was a response to Ukraine’s use of western-built missile systems inside Russia, including US-supplied ATACMS ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadow cruise missiles.
Before this confirmation, speculation arose that Russia might have launched an intercontinental-range ballistic missile. This claim was initially reported by President Zelensky the morning after the attack, who noted that the missile’s flight path characteristics matched those of an intercontinental-range ballistic missile.
While Putin unveiled the Oreshnik as a novel addition to Russia’s arsenal, it is likely a derivative of an existing design
This speculation was further fuelled by video imagery of the attack indicating that the missile carried a MIRVed payload. MIRV, or ‘multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles’, allows a single missile to carry multiple warheads, each capable of striking different targets independently.