Ukraine-Russia war latest: US warns Putin could use lethal new ballistic missile in ‘coming days’ against Kyiv
Russia could launch another hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine in the coming days, but Washington does not consider the Oreshnik weapon a game-changer in the war, a US official has said.
Russia first fired the Oreshnik missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on 21 November, in what President Vladimir Putin cast as a response to Ukraine’s first use of US ATACMs ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows to strike Russian territory with Western permission.
“We assess that the Oreshnik is not a game-changer on the battlefield, but rather just another attempt by Russia to terrorize Ukraine, which will fail,” the official said.
Putin has claimed that the Oreshnik, or hazel tree, is impossible to intercept and that it has destructive power comparable to that of a nuclear weapon, even when fitted with a conventional warhead.
But the US official downplayed the usefulness of the missiles, calling them “experimental” in nature and said that “Russia likely possesses only a handful” of them.
There was no immediate response from Russia.
