Russian President Vladimir Putin has been touting the Oreshnik missile as a new weapon for which the West has no answers. However, research into the fragments of the hypersonic missile launched on Ukraine’s Dnieper on November 21 has shown that some of the missile’s components were at least seven years old.
Ukraine’s Defense Express has claimed that one of the parts of the “Oreshnik” recovered from Dnieper City had a serial number and production date of April 12, 2017. This indicates that the missile that hit the Dnieper on November 21 was assembled around 2017-2018.
The news portal has also published corresponding pictures of the fragments of the “Oreshnik” missile showing the date of 2017.
The index of the part is also interesting: “EFIT 302811.002.” The name “EFIT” is directly related to the Russian rocket and space enterprise NPCAP (“Scientific and Production Center for Automation and Instrumentation named after Academician N. A. Pilyugin,”) which is part of Roscosmos.
Roscosmos is the state corporation of the Russian Federation responsible for space flights, cosmonautics programs, and aerospace research.
NPCAP deals with control systems for rocket complexes: “Zenit,” “Proton-M,” and “Fregat” upper stages. In particular, for the “Zenit” rocket, the system has the index “EFIT 377513.008,” and for the “Fregat” upper stage – “EFIT.378111.003.”
Thus, everything indicates that the NPCAP is also responsible for supplying the Oreshnik with control equipment, the entire missile, the warhead deployment unit, or the last stage of this missile, the report claims.
Notably, in 2017, Russia had plans to begin mass production of the RS-26 “Rubezh.” Many analysts have noted that Oreshnik is probably some derivative of the RS-26 Rubezh and also incorporates components of the Bulava missile, developed in the 1990s.
After the strike on Dnipro, the Pentagon said that Oreshnik was an experimental type of intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). British Defense Intelligence has also concluded that Oreshnik is a variant of RS-26 Rubezh, and Moscow probably started working on the missile system many years ago.
However, President Putin, in his statement, said the missile was Russia’s latest medium-range missile and named it the Oreshnik missile system.
Was Russia Violating The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty?
In his statement on November 21, President Putin said Oreshnik is a new missile system developed after the US “made a mistake by unilaterally destroying the INF Treaty in 2019 under a far-fetched pretext.”
In 1987, the US and the former Soviet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty to eliminate and permanently forswear all of their nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges of 500 to 5,500 kilometers. The treaty did not apply to air- or sea-launched missiles.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia became a party to this treaty.
However, since 2014, the US has alleged that Russia was violating its INF Treaty obligations “not to possess, produce, or flight-test” a ground-launched cruise missile having a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers or “to possess or produce launchers of such missiles.”
These allegations were repeated in the first Trump presidency. On October 20, 2018, President Donald Trump announced his intention to “terminate” the INF Treaty, citing Russian noncompliance and concerns about China’s intermediate-range missile arsenal.
Finally, on August 2, 2019, the United States formally withdrew from the INF Treaty. Notwithstanding the US allegations, Russia has always maintained that it sincerely followed the conditions laid down in the INF treaty and pursued the development of the Oreshnik missile system only after the US withdrew from the treaty.
However, if the claims made in the Defense Express report are valid, then it would mean that Russia was developing a nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) way back in 2017 and was clearly in violation of the INF treaty.
“The fact that the Russian Federation already had a control system for a medium-range ballistic missile in metal in 2017 proves once again that the Kremlin was actively violating the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with the United States,” the Defense Express report claims.
The Oreshnik Missile: What We Know So Far
Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed the Oreshnik missile in late November, announcing that it had been used for the first time in Ukraine. Its use was seen as a direct response to Ukraine’s use of advanced Western weapons like the ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles on Russian soil.
Putin described the missile as traveling at speeds up to 10 times the speed of sound, or Mach 10, comparing its trajectory to that of a meteorite. However, Ukrainian military officials reported that it reached speeds of Mach 11.
Putin further said that the missile is impervious to missile defense systems. Last week, Putin again touted the invincibility of the Oreshnik missile and proposed a “high-tech duel” to showcase the missile’s capabilities and confirm its effectiveness against Western air defense systems.
“If they doubt the Oreshnik (Hazel), let them suggest a target for us to hit, maybe something in Kyiv. They can concentrate all their air defense and missile defense forces there, and we will strike. Let’s see what happens. We are ready for such an experiment,” Putin said in his press conference on December 19, describing Oreshnik as “modern, very new” and part of Russia’s advanced military technology.
Putin has portrayed Oreshnik as an extraordinarily destructive weapon, claiming that its warheads can reach temperatures of over 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. He added that a simultaneous launch of multiple Oreshnik missiles could cause devastation similar to a nuclear strike.
So far, military analysts have assumed that Russia probably has a very limited number of Oreshnik missiles. In its intelligence update on November 29, the British Defense Ministry said Russia “only has a handful of Oreshnik missiles, which are yet to enter serial production.”
However, if the latest claims made by Ukrainian defense sources are true and Russia assembled the Oreshnik missile way back in 2017, then it’s highly likely that Moscow already has a significant number of these missiles.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from The University of Sheffield, UK. He is interested in studying Geopolitics from a historical perspective.
- He can be reached at ahlawat.sumit85 (at) gmail.com
