Moscow's response to the “attack” on Putin's residence. Russia confirms it has unleashed Oreshnik hypersonic missile in massive new attack on Ukraine
Oresnik was deployed in Belarus, according to Moscow. Photo source: not supplied / WillWest News / Profimedia
The Russian military said on Friday it had launched the hypersonic Oreshnik missile at a target in Ukraine as part of what it called a massive nighttime attack on energy facilities and drone factories in the country invaded by Vladimir Putin nearly four years ago.
Moscow's Defense Ministry said in a statement that the strike was in retaliation for what it called an attempted Ukrainian drone attack on one of President Vladimir Putin's residences in late December.
Kiev described Russia's claim that it had tried to attack the residence, located in Russia's Novgorod region, as “a lie”.
The governor of Lviv region in western Ukraine previously said the Russians hit an infrastructure target, which according to unverified reports on social media was a massive underground gas storage facility.
Reuters states that it could not verify this information.
Ukrainian media quoted the Ukrainian Air Force as saying that a ballistic missile traveling at a speed of nearly 13,000 km per hour was used in the attack.
Moscow first fired an Oreshnik missile — Russian for “hazelnut” — against what it said was a military factory in Ukraine in November 2024. On that occasion, Ukrainian sources said the missile was carrying dummy warheads, not explosives, and caused limited damage.
Russia's new Oresnik missile complex is “unstoppable,” according to Vladimir Putin, and has nuclear capability. It is being “put into combat service” in Belarus, from where it could hit London “within eight minutes”.
Putin said the medium-range Oretsnik missile is impossible to intercept due to its speed, which is said to be more than 10 times the speed of sound, and that its destructive power is comparable to that of a nuclear weapon, even when equipped with a conventional warhead.
Some Western officials have expressed skepticism about the Oresnik missile's capabilities. A US official said in December 2024 that the weapon was not considered a decisive factor on the battlefield.
