Conflicts

President Putin was pleased with the test of the brand new Oreshnik missile in mid-November. This new Russian superweapon was tested in war conditions at a Ukrainian military installation in Dnipro. 

Nuclear warhead?
With this launch, Putin also sent a clear warning shot towards the West. This time the Oreshnik missile contained ‘only’ a conventional payload, but next time it might be one or more nuclear warheads....

NATO in the crosshairs
The Russian Oreshnik missile used has a range of up to 5,800 kilometres and flies at a maximum speed of up to 12,000 kilometres per hour. All NATO countries are thus within range with it. It can launch and fire an 800-kilogram missile warhead at several targets simultaneously. Besides, with the Russian Iskanders - distances of up to 200 kilometres - and certainly the Kinzhal - 2,000 kilometres - British and US bases in Europe have already long been within reach of the Kremlin. 

Putin boasted about the unique Oresjnik missiles at a summit in the Kazakh capital Astana on Thursday. ‘They reach a temperature of 4,000 degrees Celsius, and the kinetic impact is as big as that of a meteorite. We know from the past what effects a meteorite impact can have. Sometimes they were enough to form full-fledged lakes.’

The Oreshnik missile is a medium-range missile that Russia deployed for the first time last week. The ‘experiment’ was a response ‘to the aggressive attitude of NATO countries towards Russia’, Putin told Reuters.

Mass production launched
The Russian president also threatened at a summit in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Thursday to possibly also target key decision-making centres in the Ukrainian capital Kiev with his dreaded Oreshnik super missile in the future. ‘We are forced to deploy that missile in response to the actions of our enemy,’ it read. And Putin is walking tall with his new missile, which he says has no equal in the world. ‘If we deploy the missile on a large scale, the force of such an attack will be comparable to that of a nuclear weapon,’ he said. Russia produces 10 times more missiles than all NATO countries combined,’ Putin concluded from Astana.

In fact, Russian President Vladimir Putin last week ordered the mass production and further combat tests of the new hypersonic ballistic missile Oreshnik.
The Russian president also assured the public that Russia has ‘a stockpile’ of these missiles that are ‘immediately deployable’. He added that no one else in the world has this type of weapon for the time being. 

(FVDV for Tagtik/Source: The Guardian - Reuters/Picture: Pixabay)