What Is Russias Oreshnik Ballistic Missile?

The dust has settled in Dnipro, Ukraine, where investigators are analyzing the wreckage at a weapons factory struck by a new Russian intermediate-range ballistic missile last week. But the debate continues over the strategic impact of the missile, known as the Oreshnik, both on the battlefield in Ukraine and what it means for NATO states in Europe.

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia touted the missile as an example of Russian technological prowess, built by a domestic military industry unimpeded by Western economic sanctions. Experts say it appears to share many features with other missiles that Russia has developed.

The Oreshnik is also capable of carrying nuclear weapons, at a time when Moscow has increased threats of nuclear war. It is still not clear what explosives, if any, the missile delivered in the strike on Dnipro.

Here’s what you need to know about the Oreshnik missile

• Is it a new weapon?
• How much damage did it do?
• The nuclear threat

Is it a new weapon?

The Pentagon says the Oreshnik is a tweak of Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh missile, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that has been tested since 2011.

The name Oreshnik means “hazelnut tree” — a potential reference to its sub-munitions, which resemble clusters of hazelnuts, said Timothy Wright, an expert on Russian missiles at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based research group.

“This system has been in development for a while,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies.

There are some physical differences between the Oreshnik and Rubezh missile systems. Wreckage from the crash site shows that the Oreshnik measured about three and a half feet in circumference, compared to nearly six feet for the Rubezh, according to Mr. Wright.

That might be because the Oreshnik is designed to fly shorter distances than the Rubezh. As an intercontinental ballistic missile, the Rubezh would effectively be able to reach targets anywhere on earth, experts said, while an intermediate ballistic missile like the Oreshnik would only be able to fly about 3,410 miles. That would allow it to reach most of Europe.

Despite the Oreshnik’s sub-ICBM range, Nick Brown, an analyst at Janes, the British-based defense intelligence firm, said it was the longest-range weapon to ever have been used in conflict in Europe.

Based on previous tests, experts believe the Rubezh can carry up to four warheads. Ukrainian officials said the Oreshnik carried six warheads, each with a cluster of six submunitions, in the strike on Dnipro. Ukraine said that Russia may have stockpiled as many as 10 Oreshnik missiles.

Submunitions on longer-range ballistic missiles are “quite unusual,” Mr. Wright said. But many missiles share some of the same technology. “You don’t reinvent the wheel every time you make a new missile,” he said.

How much damage did it do?

The Oreshnik strike “resulted in damage to civilian infrastructure facilities and the infrastructure of the city of Dnipro in particular,” a Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press on Sunday. There were no deaths reported in the attack.

The weapons factory that was hit probably suffered no serious damage, Mr. Lewis said, based on satellite images taken after the attack.

“The damage to the facility is quite specific — no large explosions, just big holes punched in the roofs,” Mr. Lewis said in an interview. “It’ll inconvenience them, and probably put the factory out of operations for a few days.”

Ballistic missiles are propelled into the atmosphere by rockets before descending at high speeds because of gravity’s pull. That can make them very difficult for air defense systems to intercept, and near impossible if submunitions are released. A Janes analysis found that American missile systems like the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense could intercept the Oreshnik as it travels above the atmosphere, as could the Arrow 3 defense system used by Israel, but Ukraine does not have these systems.

Mr. Lewis and Mr. Wright each said that the Oreshnik warheads probably carried very small amounts of explosives or perhaps none at all, based on video images of the small blasts they caused on impact. Just the force of empty munitions crashing into the weapons factory at high speed could cause the types of explosions seen in the videos.

“Frankly, when you’re coming in at those speeds, inert warheads cause a heck of a lot of damage,” said Tom Karako, director of the missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

But Mr. Wright warned that clear pictures of the crash site are not yet available. “It’s really difficult for us to make a battle damage assessment at this time,” he said.

The nuclear threat

Experts said the Kremlin appeared to be using the missile launch to stoke fears that it could use nuclear weapons against Ukraine. Mr. Putin has tried to establish a series of red lines for the United States and NATO, such as the use of American-supplied weapons to strike targets within Russia, but with limited success.

Days before the Oreshnik attack, the Biden administration gave Ukraine permission to fire deep-strike missiles known as ATACMS into Russia, infuriating Mr. Putin, who accused the United States of becoming an active combatant in Ukraine. Ukraine struck inside Russia with the missiles on Nov. 19, and Russia’s Oreshnik strike took place two days later.

The Oreshnik is “not about the battlefield significance — it’s about saber rattling,” Mr. Karako said.

But Mr. Lewis said that the Oreshnik also had a “real military capability” in Russia’s war in Ukraine, noting that targeting the weapons factory in Dnipro would inhibit Kyiv’s forces. “We’ll see how much damage it did, but I don’t think they did this just to make a point,” he said.

Russia’s state-run Tass news service reported that the Kremlin gave the United States a warning 30 minutes before the missile launch, as required under a 1988 agreement between the two countries, which requires notifications of the timing and location of missile tests.

“If the Russians hadn’t supplied notification, the Americans would have been exceedingly concerned about what the Russians just launched,” Mr. Wright said. “Because, you know, there has always been a nuclear shadow that’s overhanging this conflict.”