ANALYSIS Why did Putin send the Oreșnik missile in the war in Ukraine / What do we know about this hypersonic missile

Russia used the hypersonic missile Oreshnik in one of the most massive missile and drone attacks on Kyiv since the beginning of the war, in a combination of military force and political message addressed to both Ukraine and the West. While the material damage caused by this missile was limited, having symbolic and intimidation payloads – related to the fact that Oreshnik has the capability to carry nuclear payloads, the attack played a significant role for Kyiv, NATO, and the European Union.

The largest attack on Kyiv since 2026

On the night of May 23 to 24, Russian forces launched a combined package of 90 missiles and 600 drones against Ukraine, the largest attack of its kind since 2026, according to the daily assessment of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). Ukrainians managed to shoot down 55 missiles and 549 drones, but the rest hit or fell as debris in 54 locations, while 19 missiles did not hit their targets, announced the Ukrainian Air Force, as cited by ISW.

The attack primarily targeted Kyiv, but also other regions – Poltava, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, Kirovohradska, Odesa, Sumy, Zhytomyr, and Cherkasy – in a campaign aimed at both destroying infrastructure and exhausting Ukrainian air defense.

Civilian casualties and damage in central Kyiv

In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that at least two people were killed and 81 injured in the capital, where about 30 buildings were destroyed or damaged, including residential blocks and several schools, according to reports from Reuters. Two other people were killed in the area around the capital, with the total number of injuries nationwide approaching 100.

The attack also hit cultural and institutional symbols: the Kyiv government reported damage to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, the Cabinet of Ministers, and the National Museum of Art, while a museum dedicated to the Chernobyl disaster, recently inaugurated, was destroyed, notes ISW and Reuters. According to the head of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirilo Budanov, cited by Reuters, targeting cultural and memorial institutions is part of a "war against our culture, memory, and identity."

How the Oreshnik missile was used in the attack

This is the first time Russia has used Oreshnik against Kyiv; the missile had previously been used against the cities of Dnipro in November 2024 and Lviv at the beginning of 2026.

ISW shows that Russia used in this raid an Oreshnik with multiple independent reentry vehicles (MIRV), images from Kyiv showing six clusters of submunitions, each containing six kinetic projectiles, a configuration similar to that observed in the previous attack on Lviv. The American think tank notes that the Russians seem to have used kinetic projectiles instead of a conventional explosive payload, indicating an interest in testing and refining a nuclear weapon delivery system without exceeding the threshold of their effective use.

In ISW's interpretation, the Kremlin also used this attack to try to "erase" the image of a weak and criticized May 9 parade, resorting to a spectacular show of force as a substitute for military successes on the front.

The political context in Moscow and the recourse to Oreshnik

The internal Russian context also explains the recourse to the Oreshnik missile. According to an AFP analysis cited by HotNews, Russia brought the missile into action after a series of failures on the battlefield and amid intensified Ukrainian strikes behind the front, including on Moscow. The head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, cited by AFP, called this attack "a political intimidation tactic and a risky policy that is approaching the threshold of a nuclear conflict", emphasizing that "Russia has reached a deadlock on the battlefield, so it terrorizes Ukraine with deliberate strikes on urban centers."

President Volodymyr Zelensky was even more direct, describing the Russian leadership on Telegram as "truly insane," under conditions in which, in his view, the use of a nuclear-capable missile against a city of 200,000 people, Bila Tserkva, and the capital Kyiv is a form of state terrorism aimed at "killing as many civilians as possible," as summarized by AFP and Reuters.

The Kremlin's "retaliation" narrative and criticism from Russia

Russia justifies its attacks through a rhetoric of "retaliation" for alleged Ukrainian strikes on civilians in Russia, but this narrative is contradicted by its own practice of deliberately hitting civilian targets in Ukraine, notes ISW. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed that Oreshnik, Iskander, Kinzhal, and Zircon targeted "military command facilities, air bases, and objectives of the Ukrainian military industry," while Dmitry Medvedev presented the raid as a response to a Ukrainian attack that allegedly killed children at a high school in the occupied town of Starobilsk, in Luhansk.

The Ukrainian General Staff announced, however, that the target in Starobilsk was a drone technology center of the Russian army, and ISW reminds that Moscow has systematically and deliberately used attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, weaponizing civilian suffering as a war tool. At the same time, some Russian military bloggers, cited by ISW, criticized the attack as "costly and symbolic," without clear military targets in Bila Tserkva, about 80 kilometers from Kyiv, and without obvious benefits on the front, suggesting that the resources used for spectacular strikes on Kyiv would be more useful in equipping units on the contact line.

According to a timeline reconstructed by AFP and Reuters, the raid from Saturday to Sunday is the third known use of the Oreshnik missile in the war in Ukraine. The first launch occurred in November 2024, when the missile hit a military factory in Dnipro, an attack presented by Moscow as a response to the use of Western ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles by Kyiv.

A second use was reported in January 2026, when, according to a Ukrainian official cited by Reuters, Oreshnik hit a state enterprise in Lviv. In both cases, the material impact was limited, as the missile was reportedly equipped with "dud" warheads, not with explosive payloads, which reinforces the interpretation that Moscow primarily uses Oreshnik as a political signaling tool and technical testing. In December 2025, Belarus announced, in turn, the deployment of Oreshnik missiles on its territory, and the Russian Ministry of Defense broadcast images of what it presented as the deployment of a nuclear-capable hypersonic system in this allied country – a message directed directly at NATO member states in the vicinity, notes Reuters.

What is the Oreshnik missile: range, speed, warheads

Oreshnik, whose name means "hazelnut," is described by Reuters and AFP as a hypersonic ballistic missile with an intermediate range (3,000–5,500 km), derived from the RS 26 Rubezh system, which in turn is based on RS 24 Yars, a program that Moscow temporarily suspended in 2018 for resource reasons. Vladimir Putin claims that Oreshnik can reach speeds of Mach 10–11, which means, as he himself explained in a televised meeting with military officials, about 2.5–3 kilometers per second – approximately 12,350 km/h – and that the temperature of the impact elements reaches 4,000 degrees Celsius, nearly the temperature at the surface of the Sun, which would make its destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon even when the missile carries a conventional warhead.

Ukrainian military intelligence services (GUR) estimated, after the attack on November 21, 2024, that the speed reached by Oreshnik in the final part of the trajectory was "greater than Mach 11," that is, approximately 13,600 km/h.

Multiple warheads and the difficulty of intercepting Oreshnik

A central element of Oreshnik is its ability to carry multiple warheads, each with an independent trajectory upon reentry into the atmosphere, which considerably complicates interception. Putin stated that the missile's warheads "penetrate the atmosphere and hit targets at hypersonic speeds," and a clip of the first launch against Dnipro showed six successive flashes at the moment of impact, interpreted by Ukrainian officials as evidence that the missile was equipped with six warheads. In the case of the attack on Kyiv, an investigator from the Center for Information Resilience, Rollo Collins, cited by Reuters, analyzed the images and concluded that the Oreshnik warhead divided into 36 submunitions distributed in six clusters, confirming the MIRV configuration – multiple independent reentry vehicles – designed to saturate any defense system. ISW observes that the entry angles of some submunitions in Kyiv differed from those in Lviv, suggesting that the Russians are testing different strike profiles to optimize penetration capability against defenses.

Oreshnik and the end of the INF Treaty

Strategically, Oreshnik is one of the products of the "new generation" of intermediate-range weapons made possible after the denunciation of the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty by Washington in 2019, a decision made by the Trump administration amid accusations that Moscow was violating the agreement. Analyst Pavel Podvig from the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, cited by AFP, emphasizes that Oreshnik "can threaten almost all of Europe" and, theoretically, even the west coast of the USA if launched from the Russian Far East.

However, Western officials and experts cited by Reuters warn that the Kremlin's statements about the invincibility and "nuclear power" of Oreshnik are exaggerated: in a 2024 comment, an American official described the weapon as "experimental," noting that Russia likely has only a few examples and concluding that it does not represent a "game changer" on the battlefield.

The real impact of Oreshnik: limited damage, maximum symbolism

Field assessments confirm that the material impact of Oreshnik in Ukraine has been modest so far. AFP describes the damage caused in Dnipro after the first use as "very limited," despite the "infernal noise" and bright lights observed by residents on the night of the attack, and the Ukrainian official cited by Reuters after the strike in Lviv speaks of "minor penetration of some concrete structures" and craters nearby, under conditions in which the missile was equipped only with test warheads.

Recent reports from Bila Tserkva, taken by AFP, indicate that locals saw the missile hitting the area, but again, the damage was limited. For Ukrainians, AFP writes, the repeated use of a weapon always presented as part of the strategic nuclear arsenal equates to "normalizing an apocalyptic weapon."

What experts say about the political message of Oreshnik

This character of "political instrument" is emphasized by several experts cited by Reuters and AFP. Mark Trevelyan, an analyst cited by Reuters on Russia, shows that the use of dud warheads indicates that the main purpose is not massive destruction, but sending a "warning signal" at a key moment in the war: Russia wants to demonstrate that it possesses and is willing to use a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile against Ukraine or, in a theoretical plan, against a NATO member European state.

European leaders, cited by Reuters, interpret the attacks with Oreshnik as an attempt to intimidate Kyiv's allies, to discourage them from strengthening their support, including through potential Western protection missions on Ukrainian territory. In the same vein, HotNews notes that, amid tactical failures and internal pressure, the Kremlin is trying to compensate with spectacular strikes on urban centers, to rewrite its internal power narrative.

Reactions from Western leaders to the Oreshnik attack

In international reactions, the Oreshnik missile attack on Kyiv has been described by several European leaders as an "escalation" of the conflict. According to Reuters, the UK and Germany explicitly used this term, emphasizing that it is an intermediate-range missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Kaja Kallas accused Moscow of resorting to "a political scare tactic and a dangerous game of nuclear brinkmanship," while President Zelensky called, in a message on Telegram cited by Reuters, for "this not to remain without consequences for Russia," urging the United States, Europe, and allied partners to make decisions. For him, the damage to government and cultural institutions and the destruction of a museum dedicated to Chernobyl are part of a "campaign to destroy Ukrainian culture and memory," an argument also reiterated by his advisor Kirilo Budanov.

After the previous Oreshnik attack in January 2026, the now interim Romanian Foreign Minister, Oana Ţoiu, stated that Romania "firmly condemns" the use of a nuclear-capable ballistic missile against a target in western Ukraine and warned that "the use of such weapons, even with conventional warheads, amplifies security risks for all of Europe." In the same statement, cited by the publication Romania Insider, the head of Romanian diplomacy called for "a strong and coordinated international response," including by "increasing pressure on the Russian Federation and holding it accountable for war crimes committed in Ukraine."

Russia's strategy: saturating Ukrainian air defense

Militarily, ISW emphasizes that Oreshnik is integrated into a broader attack model: Russia uses massive waves of Shahed drones and other platforms (Geran-3, Geran-4) to saturate defense systems and force them to consume interceptors before launching ballistic missiles that are harder to stop, at a time when there is a global shortage of Patriot interceptors.

Ukrainian expert in electronic warfare and drones Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov, cited by ISW, observes that the interception rate of drones exceeds 90%, but only 36.7% of Iskander-M and S 300 ballistic missiles are shot down, which explains why the Russians are trying to force the Ukrainian system to choose what to protect – capitals, energy infrastructure, military bases – and what to leave exposed. From this perspective, Oreshnik is the symbolic spearhead of a strategy of attrition and intimidation, not necessarily a weapon intended for a decisive change in the balance on the front.

Should Ukraine, NATO, and the EU fear Oreshnik?

The question remains whether the use of the Oreshnik missile should "scare" Ukraine, NATO, and the European Union. From Kyiv's perspective, the threat is not fundamentally new: Ukrainian cities have lived for years under the constant risk of missile and drone attacks, and the integration of a nuclear-capable hypersonic missile into this arsenal does not change the nature of the conflict, as long as the warheads used are test or conventional.

What changes is the level of psychological and symbolic pressure: the fact that a weapon initially intended for strategic deterrence is used "routinely" in the war against Ukraine erodes the taboos related to the Russian nuclear arsenal and raises the stakes of each escalation.

What Oreshnik means for European security

For NATO and the EU, the presence of a missile with a range of 3,000–5,500 km, produced in series and deployed also in Belarus, at the gates of the Union, represents an additional factor in the European security architecture. Oreshnik demonstrates that Russia has exploited the void created by the collapse of the INF to develop a vector capable of striking most European capitals with nuclear or conventional warheads. However, Western assessments cited by Reuters insist that stocks are limited, the weapon is rarely used, and mainly as a signaling tool, which suggests that, at present, the main risk lies in gradual escalation and erosion of norms, not in an immediate intention to resort to a real nuclear strike. As long as Moscow remains in the realm of non-explosive or conventional warheads, the likelihood of a sudden shift to nuclear use remains low – yet each such use tests the limits of Western patience and responsiveness.

Oreshnik, a new step in the "normalization" of the Russian nuclear arsenal

In conclusion, the attack this weekend with Oreshnik does not radically change the military data of the war, but marks a new stage in the "normalization" of the use of weapons designed for strategic deterrence within a conventional conflict. For Kyiv, it confirms that Russia is willing to gradually raise the level of risk, using its nuclear-capable arsenal as a tool of intimidation and compensation for failures on the front.

For NATO and the EU, the message is that, in the absence of a rapid strengthening of air defense and a deterrence architecture adapted to new realities, the European space will remain exposed not only to conventional threats but also to a type of nuclear brinkmanship that relies on fear and confusion to weaken the political will to support Ukraine.

​*****Synthesis made with the help of a data monitoring flow provided by the media monitoring platform NewsVibe Romania. The analysis, data, and images presented have been enhanced with the help of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence tools.