Russia fires second Oreshnik missile at Kiev, but missile explodes on Russian territory

On Thursday, February 6, in the morning, during a large-scale air alert in Ukraine, Russia may have fired an "Oreshnik" missile towards Kiev. No explosions were heard. Ukrainian military officer Kirill Sazonov said that "Oreshnik" did not fly far - the missile malfunctioned and exploded on Russian territory, writes David Axe for Forbes.

After warning US authorities of its intention, on the morning of November 21, Russia fired a mysterious new ballistic missile - initially mistaken for a nuclear-powered intercontinental ballistic missile - at the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine, damaging buildings and injuring dozens of people.

The mysterious weapon turned out to be a variant of the Russian RS-26 - a 40-ton solid-fuel rocket with six independent launch vehicles. Its name, as Russian President Vladimir Putin announced shortly after the strike, is “Oreshnik“.

Three months later, on Thursday morning, the Russians launched another “Oreshnik“ - this time apparently aimed at Kiev. Air raid sirens wailed. The city's residents sought shelter. But then... nothing. No screams of incoming UAVs. No thunderous booms as the unexploded devices slammed into the ground.

According to Kirill Sazonov, a Ukrainian war correspondent, the "Oreshnik" ““didn't fly far“. It reportedly malfunctioned and exploded on Russian soil.



Everyone knew an attack was coming. A week after the first "Oreshnik" strike, Putin threatened to launch more "Oreshniks" - and explicitly warned that he would target "decision-making centers" in Kiev, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, senior officials, commanders and their staffs work.



But the threat was as real as the "Oreshnik" is reliable. While it has not yet been possible to independently confirm the failure of the second "Oreshnik" in flight, a failure would not be surprising.

The "Oreshnik" is simply a RS-26 with less fuel and therefore a shorter range. The very first test of the RS-26 in 2011 ended in explosive embarrassment as the prototype rocket veered off course and exploded a few kilometers from the launch pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia.

The second "Oreshnik" that failed not only spared the people of Kiev and Ukrainian leaders a long, scary morning underground, but also turned against the Kremlin. After all, the ICBM-like "Oreshnik" with its nuclear associations is more frightening than militarily effective.

Complex and imprecise, "Oreshnik" is an expensive way "to achieve less destruction," Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the "Middlebury" Institute for International Studies, told Reuters. in Monterey.

In that sense, it is a weapon of terror - a device designed to frighten many more people than it does to injure or kill. That is why Putin followed the first strike on the “Oreshnik“ with a media event that launched what The Moscow Times described as “a military propaganda campaign designed to exaggerate the capabilities of the Russian military-industrial complex and the power of the new weapon“.

Putin “had to use [the Oreshnik] and then give a press conference, and then give another press conference and say, “Hey, this thing is really scary, you should be afraid,“ Lewis points out.

But now that half of the “Oreshnik“ missiles may have crashed before reaching their targets, the terror missiles are certainly becoming less scary by the day.