Al Arabiya Newspaper headlined
Russia’s new missile sparked controversy: This is the most dangerous thing that Oreshnik carries
Between Kiev and Moscow, during the past hours, descriptions of the new hypersonic missile launched by Russian forces towards the Ukrainian city of Dnipro differed.
While Russian President Vladimir Putin confirmed yesterday that his forces bombed Ukraine in response to its launch of Western missiles, with a new medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile, Kiev announced that the missile is intercontinental.
What are the capabilities of this missile? And why did it raise international concern?
The “Oreshnik” is considered a medium-range hypersonic ballistic missile (IRBM), which the Russian president announced for the first time yesterday, Thursday.
Its speed reaches 10 Mach (12,300 km/h, 7,610 mph), which makes it difficult to intercept.
Carries nuclear warheads
It is also capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
But many experts have confirmed that other Russian missiles are also capable of carrying nuclear warheads, such as the Iskander and Kh-101.
The most dangerous thing about it
However, what makes this medium-range missile particularly worrisome, in addition to its range, is its ability to launch multiple nuclear warheads, making it difficult to intercept.
Russia Today newspaper headlined
Russian Oreshnik missile tops search engines
The Russian intercontinental and medium-range Oreshnik missile topped search engines around the world after the Russian president announced its use in the special military operation zone.
According to Google indicators, the most searches in the United States or Australia during the past hours were for the words “Oreshnik” (meaning hazel) and “hypersonic missiles” and “Russia”.
According to Google, interest in the modern Russian missile has appeared in almost all parts of the world, including European countries, the United States, Africa, South America, and Australia.
BBC newspaper headlined
What do you know about. Oreshnik missile
Russian, eyewitnesses described it as unusual, which led to explosions that lasted for three hours.
The attack involved a missile so powerful that Ukrainian officials later said it had the characteristics of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Western officials quickly denied this, saying such a strike would have triggered a nuclear alert in the United States.
Hours after the strike, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in a televised address that Russia had launched a “new medium-range conventional missile” codenamed Oreshnik, meaning hazelnut in Russian.
Putin said the weapon travels at a speed of Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second (10 times the speed of sound), adding that “there are currently no means to counter this weapon.”
He said a major military-industrial site in Dnipro, used to manufacture missiles and other weapons, had been hit. He called the attack a “successful” test because “the target was reached.”
Speaking to senior defense ministry officials a day later, Putin said the missile tests would continue “including in combat conditions.”
Despite Putin’s description of this weapon, there seems to be no clear consensus on what it actually is.
Ukrainian military intelligence says the missile is a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile known as the “Kidr”. It was travelling at Mach 11 and took 15 minutes to reach its launch site, more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) away in the Astrakhan region of Russia.
They say the missile was equipped with six warheads, each carrying six submunitions.
This is supported by BBC Verify’s examination of video footage of the attack. Much of the footage is grainy or poor quality, but it clearly shows six flashes in the night sky, each consisting of a cluster of six individual projectiles.
The area hit is in an industrial area south-west of the city of Dnipro.
Why does speed matter?
If Putin’s description is correct, the missile is at the upper end of the definition of hypersonic speed, and few things can achieve that.
Speed matters because the faster a missile goes, the faster it can reach its target. The faster it reaches its target, the less time the defending military has to respond.
A ballistic missile typically reaches its target by following an arc into the atmosphere and a similar trajectory downward toward its destination.
But as it descends, the aircraft gains speed and kinetic energy, and the more kinetic energy it has, the more options it has. This allows it to maneuver toward its target—performing a kind of defensive twist—which makes it extremely difficult to intercept by surface-to-air missile systems (such as the U.S.-made Patriot system in Ukraine).
This is nothing new for militaries that must defend against such threats, of course, but the faster it goes, the harder it becomes.
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