Presented by the Kremlin as a weapon capable of changing the balance of the war in Ukraine, the Oreshnik ballistic missile seems to have lost much of the aura created around it. Some experts believe that the system is costly and not precise enough to make a decisive impact in the conflict.
According to an analysis published by The Insider, the system is increasingly invoked by Russian authorities as a tool of intimidation, but its military and political results remain limited.
A revealing moment was Putin’s statement at the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, where he argued that one of the most recent attacks with Oreshnik had a test character and hit what he described as a mere “shed”.
The statement starkly contrasts with previous presentations of the missile, once described as a weapon with effects comparable to those of a nuclear strike, without radioactive contamination.
Contested military effect
Despite Moscow’s claim that all Oreshnik launches have hit their targets, public evidence of major destruction is limited. In the case of the attack on the city of Bila Tserkva, near Kiev, subsequent images indicated damage in the area of garages and industrial buildings, not strategic military targets.
The Insider analysis shows that the effect of the ammunition used would have been much lower than the image promoted by the Kremlin, and the recovered remnants suggest the use of components based on older technologies. Many experts believe that the system is costly and not precise enough to make a decisive impact in the conflict when used with conventional payloads.
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