Ukrainian forces executed a secret operation inside Russia and destroyed one of its new Oreshnik long-range ballistic missiles, Kyiv’s military revealed on Friday.
The operation took place overnight at the Kapustin Yar launch site in Russia’s southeastern Astrakhan region on July 8, 2024. Ukraine is just now making the details public for the first time.
Vasyl Malyuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country’s internal security agency, said during a briefing on Friday that the operation was classified and only known to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a few foreign heads of state at the time.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, the HUR, revealed some of the details of the operation in a statement published to Telegram and said it participated in the mission alongside the SBU and the country’s SZRU Foreign Intelligence Service.
Zelenskyy said that the Oreshnik has a 5,500-kilometer (3,500-mile) range and a 700-kilometer (453-mile) “dead zone.” Within that latter range, sometimes referred to as a “no escape zone,” the probability of a missile hitting its target is greatest. Russia plans to deploy the missile to Belarus, the HUR said, citing the Ukrainian president.
Russia first attacked Ukraine with the Oreshnik missile in November 2024. At that time, President Vladimir Putin characterized the missile as having a “non-nuclear hypersonic warhead” and said there is no way to defend against it, as he often does with new weapons.
The Biden administration described Russia’s Oreshnik as an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile apparently based on the design of the RS-26 Rubezh, known by NATO as SS-X-31, a solid-fueled missile that could carry a nuclear warhead.
The Oreshnik attack last year raised alarm bells in both Ukraine and the West, as it marked the first time a missile with such a long range had been used in the war. Russia has said the missile can travel as fast as Mach 10 — or 10 times the speed of sound — and carry multiple warheads.
While the Oreshnik has the range to strike deep into Europe, missile experts have questioned the weapon’s capabilities and overall strategic value.
Russia is believed to have only a few Oreshnik missiles, but Putin said in June that serial production is underway. It is unclear how many the country may be able to make annually.
Zelenskyy said on Friday that Russia can produce up to six Oreshnik missiles each year, and Ukrainian media reported that Malyuk, the SBU chief, said the covert operation last year eliminated one of three missiles.
The destruction of the Oreshnik missile last year is one of several covert operations that Ukraine has executed inside Russia. Kyiv has also pulled off daring assassinations and attacks on military sites.
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