Russia's Neighbor Responds to Reports Oreshnik Missile Broke Down Midflight
Russia fired its Oreshnik missile for the first time at Ukraine in November, targeting a Ukrainian military site in the central city of Dnipro.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described the missile as a new hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), able to travel long distances at 10 times the speed of sound, or Mach 10.
Ukrainian authorities initially reported Moscow had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and had travelled up to Mach 11. The Pentagon later said the missile was modeled on Russia's RS-26 Rubezh ICBM.
Moscow said the missile was impossible to intercept and able to carry nuclear warheads. Footage showed the missile carried six warheads which slammed into different targets close to one another in Dnipro.
Ukraine on Sunday launched coordinated drone attacks on multiple Russian airbases across the country, with one official claiming to have destroyed 13 Russian aircraft.
Other reports said as many as 41 aircraft were destroyed or damaged in the attack dubbed "Russia's Pearl Harbor' by pro-Moscow military bloggers.
Satellite imagery from the Siberian air base of Belaya and Olenya, an Arctic base in Murmansk—just two of the bases targeted in "Operation Spiderweb"—showed several destroyed Tu-95 and Tu-22 bombers.
Ukraine has been anticipating a potent Russian response to the drone strikes on its airfields, former Ukrainian security service officer Ivan Stupak previously told Newsweek, suggesting Moscow could opt to launch one of its fearsome Oreshnik missiles.
Pro-Ukrainian and Kremlin-supporting accounts speculated from late Thursday that footage widely shared online showed an Oreshnik missile malfunctioning over Kazakhstan, although the claims have been met with skepticism by analysts.
Ukraine said in November the Oreshnik was fired from the Kapustin Yar range in Russia's Astrakhan region, immediately west of Kazakhstan and closer to Ukraine than the former Soviet republic.
"The observed trajectory of the debris would be highly unusual for an IRBM launch against a target in Ukraine," making it unlikely to be an Oreshnik, Fabian Hoffmann, research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project at the University of Oslo, Norway, told Newsweek.
The Kazakh Defense Ministry said late on Thursday the country's airspace had not been violated, adding relevant authorities were "studying this phenomenon and will provide clarification" about "unidentified objects in the sky."
The clips circulating on social media show something "similar to the remains of debris from a spacecraft entering the atmosphere or a meteorite stream," the Kazakh government added. "As a rule, they all burn up in the dense layers of the atmosphere, before reaching the earth's surface."
Newsweek has reached out to the Russian Defense Ministry via email.
Russia launched a large-scale drone and missile attack on Ukraine overnight, activating air alerts in all of Ukraine's regions, according to domestic media.
Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia fired more than 400 drones and over 40 missiles — including ballistic missiles — at the country, injuring at least 49 people.
Ukraine's state emergency service said three of its employees had been killed overnight. Kyiv mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said four people had died in the capital.
"An Oreshnik missile might have been added as a special demonstration of Russian strike power in response to the destruction of Russian bombers by Ukrainian drones," said David Hambling, a U.K.-based weapons and technology expert.
"However, the evidence is all circumstantial, and the location and pattern of objects makes it difficult to confirm claims that this was an Oreshnik launched from the Kapustin Yar site in Astrakhan rather than or re-entering space debris, or simply a meteor," Hambling told Newsweek.
Ukraine's military separately said on Friday it had struck Russia's Engels airbase and the Dyagilevo airfield in Ryazan overnight. Ukraine also targeted Dyagilevo in "Operation Spiderweb" on Sunday.
The Kremlin targeted Ukrainian cities and civilians in retaliation for Kyiv's audacious drone raid on multiple Russian airbases on Sunday, Ukraine's foreignminister, Andrii Sybiha, said in a post to social media on Friday.
Analyst David Hambling told Newsweek: "Whether this is a a failed Oreshnik or Russia lacks the resources or confidence to launch one, it shows that Russia has no good answer to Ukraine's highly effective drone strikes on their territory."
Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to respond to Ukraine's large-scale drone strike on military aircraft, according to Donald Trump, though the nature and scale of such a response remains unclear.
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