Russia Just Blasted Ukraine With Another Giant Oreshnik Missile—An ICBM Minus Its Nuclear Warheads
The Oreshnik is meant to terrify
Between July 8 and 9, 2024, Ukrainian special forces targeted and reportedly destroyed one of Russia’s Oreshnik ballistic missiles on the ground in Kapustin Yar, Russia’s main missile testing and fabrication site 370 miles from the front line in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian special operators apparently guided long-range attack drones to Kasputin Yar and destroyed the missile at its fabrication facility. Footage from the ground in Kasputin Yar on July 9 depicted drones barreling in and smoke curling from the targeted building.
It was more than a year before the Ukrainian main intelligence directorate finally copped to the raid. “The operation was classified, and its results were reported only to the president of Ukraine and several leaders of foreign states at that time,” the intel directorate stated in October.
Sometime prior to the raid, Ukrainian intelligence had warned Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky that Russia planned to deploy the hypersonic Oreshnik—which strikes with six independent non-explosive warheads, each inflicting heavy damage through sheer kinetic energy—in Belarus for potential strikes on Ukraine.
The July 2024 raid aimed to forestall the deployment.
It succeeded … and failed. Yes, Ukrainian intelligence may have destroyed one Oreshnik in Kasputin Yar. But four months later, another Oreshnik streaked down on the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine. (See image below.) And today, a third Oreshnik targeted the city of Lviv in western Ukraine. (See video at top.)
