Author: Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborne
LONDON (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin launched an Oreshnik hypersonic missile in what appeared to be an attempt to intimidate Ukraine and send a signal of Russian military might to Europe and the United States at a critical moment in talks to end the war.
Putin has repeatedly touted the speed and destructive power of Oreshnik missiles, which Russia first launched into Ukraine in November 2024. Russia has retained the weapon ever since.
The overnight strike in Oreshnik, western Ukraine, comes after a week of setbacks for Russia. On Saturday, President Donald Trump sent in U.S. Special Forces to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a close ally of Putin, and on Wednesday, U.S. forces seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in the North Atlantic.
On Tuesday, Britain and France announced plans to deploy troops to Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire, prompting Moscow to respond that it would consider foreign soldiers legitimate targets for fighting.
Gerhard Mangot, a Russia expert at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, said Moscow was frustrated at being sidelined in weeks of diplomacy between the United States, Ukraine and Europe and was “particularly angry” about potential troop deployments planned by Kiev’s European allies. He said the use of Oreshnik should be viewed in this context.
“This is a signal to the United States and Europe about the military capabilities of the Russian military,” Mangot said in a telephone interview.
He said Moscow wanted to send the message that “Russia should be taken seriously given its military arsenal and that the Europeans and Trump should regain respect for Russia’s position in negotiations.”
“Destruction is not necessarily the goal”
The Oreshnik is capable of carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads, although there is no indication that the latest attack had any nuclear components.
A senior Ukrainian official told Reuters the missile hit a state-owned company in the western city of Lviv and could have carried an inert or “dummy” warhead – just as Russia first launched the missile in 2024 to test the weapon in a war.
Asked whether using fake warheads would undermine Moscow’s ability to intimidate Ukraine and its allies, Pavel Podvig, director of Russia’s nuclear forces program, told Reuters: “At the moment it appears that Russia is using Oreshnik to send a signal, so destruction is not necessarily the goal.”
“This could be a general signal of determination to escalate. My guess is that the West will interpret it that way,” he said.
Western countries reacted swiftly to the attack, which occurred about 60 kilometers (40 miles) from Ukraine’s border with NATO member Poland. The leaders of Britain, France and Germany called it “escalating and unacceptable.” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Karas said this was “a clear escalation against Ukraine and is intended to send a warning to Europe and the United States.”
Russia’s statement on why missiles used raises questions
Russia expert Mangot expressed doubts about the official statement from the Russian Defense Ministry that the Oreshnik launch was in response to a Ukrainian drone attack late last month on a Putin residence in the northern Novgorod region. Ukraine denies any such attack and accuses Moscow of lying to derail peace talks.
Several high-profile Russian war bloggers also criticized the official characterization of the attack as a retaliatory attack. One of them, Yuri Baranchik, said it would “look more convincing” if Moscow fired missiles at President Volodymyr Zelensky’s bunker in Kiev.
Australian military expert Mick Ryan linked the use of such weapons to Russia’s recent setbacks, particularly over Venezuela.
The point, he said, is “to prove that Russia remains a nuclear-armed world power. Under that guise, it is a psychological weapon – a tool of Putin’s cognitive warfare against Ukraine and the West – rather than a weapon of mass physical destruction.”
Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president and current Putin Security Council vice-chairman and a major Russian hawk, mentioned in social media posts Maduro’s arrest, the seizure of oil tankers by the United States and the possibility of further U.S. sanctions on Russia, which he said made for a “stormy” start to the year.
In comments highly critical of Washington, he said international relations were in a madhouse and likened the Oreshnik attack to “life-saving injections of haloperidol,” an antipsychotic drug.
Prominent Russian war blogger Fighter-Bomber, a former soldier, said he viewed the use of Oreshnik as a show of power meant to send a message and that Moscow would not use it regularly.
He noted that some Oreshnik systems have been transferred to Belarus and that Russia will have some of its own systems in reserve, but said there will not be a steady supply of the relatively new missiles.
“Given all these constants, we can assume that we have the ability to conduct two or three such demonstrations per year,” he wrote.
He expressed hope that no further launches would be needed for now, concluding: “The signal has been sent and it has been heard.”
(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborne in London; Editing by Frances Kerry)
