Mystery surrounding "Oreschnik"

Special summit! NATO reacts to Putin’s new missile

(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Kreml/AFP, Vyacheslav PROKOFYEV)

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has convened a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council for Tuesday. The background to the special summit is the deployment of a new Russian medium-range missile. Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin recently openly threatened the West with missile strikes, which apparently impressed powerful members of the alliance

According to an alliance spokesperson, the meeting in Brussels will focus specifically on the recent Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. The Kremlin apparently fired a new medium-range missile called "Oreshnik" on Thursday morning. Military observers see this as an intimidation tactic.

Guesswork about the new missile
Little is known about the new weapon. According to Russian information, the projectile can fly at hypersonic speed and cannot be intercepted. Experts assume that it could theoretically also be equipped with nuclear warheads. The word "Oreschnik" translates as nut bush. The exact properties are still a mystery.

A total of six individual warheads have hit Dnipro. They were not of a nuclear nature, said Russian ruler Putin. The Pentagon assumes that the medium-range ballistic missile is based on the model of the Russian RS-26 intercontinental ballistic missile.

The missile reached more than eleven times the speed of sound, according to the Ukrainian secret service. The "Oreshnik" flew for 15 minutes from launch in the southern Russian region of Astrakhan to impact in the city of Dnipro and was equipped with six warheads - each of which was fitted with six pieces of submunition. "The speed in the last section of the trajectory was over Mach eleven," according to the secret service. One Mach corresponds to around 1225 kilometers per hour.

According to the alliance, the consultations in Brussels are being organized at the request of the government in Kiev and are taking place at ambassador level. The NATO-Ukraine Council met for the first time last year at the NATO summit in Lithuania at the level of heads of state and government. The relatively new body was created for exchanges in crisis situations.

It is also intended to facilitate closer cooperation until the conditions for Ukraine's admission to NATO are met. These include an end to the Russian war of aggression and reforms in Ukraine.

The use of Western weapons against targets in Russia provoked an angry reaction in Moscow. In a televised address, Putin urged Ukraine's allies to exercise restraint. According to Putin, the abolition of territorial borders by the West had now given the Ukraine conflict "elements of a global character". 

A dispute over direction now looms
In contrast to the USA, the UK and France, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has hit the brakes in the wake of the past few hours. We must ensure that the war does not escalate into a war between Russia and NATO, Scholz said on Friday.

Scholz is quite alone in his opinion within NATO.

(Bild: AFP/John MACDOUGALL)

In this context, he emphasized his rejection of the delivery of long-range cruise missiles and campaigned: "I say that only with the SPD can prudence and clear support for Ukraine come together on this difficult issue."

Scholz called the latest Russian attack on Ukraine with a new medium-range missile a "terrible escalation, just like the use of North Korean soldiers beforehand, who are now being used in this war and are dying for Putin's imperial dream".

Ukraine demands reaction from the international community
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded a decisive response from the international community. "This is a clear and serious expansion of the scale and brutality of this war, a cynical violation of the UN Charter by Russia," Selensky wrote on social networks. Putin "doesn't care what China, Brazil, the European countries, America and all other countries in the world demand."

According to reports, Ukraine has fired US-made ATACMS missiles and British Storm Shadow cruise missiles at military targets in Russia in recent days. Selensky explained that this was covered by international law as a defense against the Russian war of aggression. "Our right to self-defense is the same as that of any other nation." Military actions of this scope require a release from the supplier states.