Russia’s Oreshnik missiles have been in the spotlight since last week, when one of them hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro and spurred three hours of explosions that damaged the city’s infrastructure. The strike was so strong that Ukrainian officials likened it to that of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Hours later, Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly bragged about the new weapon, which he characterized as a “conventional intermediate-range” missile that was given the code name Oreshnik and traveled at a speed of Mach 10, which is 10 times the speed of sound and around 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second.
He issued a warning to Russia’s enemies that “there are currently no ways of counteracting this weapon.”
Ukrainian military intelligence has said they believe the missile is a newer ICBM. They report that it traveled at Mach 11 and took 15 minutes to make its way there across a 620-mile journey. It was reportedly equipped with six warheads that boasted six sub-munitions each. They believe Russia has stockpiled up to ten of these missiles.
Either way, these missiles are incredibly fast, reaching their target in just minutes and giving defending militaries very little time to prepare or react. Moreover, because they gain kinetic energy as they follow their arc back down from the atmosphere to their destination, they become more difficult for surface-to-air missile systems to intercept.
Even more alarmingly, the Oreshnik missile is capable of delivering nuclear warheads, which is not a comforting thought at a time when Russia has been increasing its threats of nuclear war amid the ongoing fighting in Ukraine.
How fast can these missiles make their way to the U.S.?
Russian state media has been playing up the Oreshnik, with Sputnik claiming that Europe cannot protect itself against the missile and that it is capable of reaching a number of American missile bases.
The publication explained how fast it can get not only to U.S. bases but also American bases in the Middle East and the Pacific.
For example, from southern Russia, it can get to the U.S. airbase in Kuwait in just 11 minutes and the U.S. Air Base in Qatar in 13 minutes.
When it comes to the Pacific, it can reach the U.S. Air Base in Alaska in just 12 minutes, and it can even get as far as the U.S. Navy and Air Force Bases in Pearl Harbor in 25 minutes. It’s also just 23 to 24 minutes away from reaching missile silos in Montana and North Dakota, they claim.
According to Russian state media, the Oreshnik can travel as far as 3,400 miles.
Just days before Russia launched the Oreshnik missile, the Biden administration gave Kiev the go-ahead to fire ATACMS missiles into Russia that were supplied by the West, something that Putin has long warned would draw his ire.
The Kremlin reportedly gave the U.S. a 30-minute heads up about the missile launch, something they are required to do under a 1988 agreement.
Russian missile expert Timothy Wright told the media: “If the Russians hadn’t supplied notification, the Americans would have been exceedingly concerned about what the Russians just launched. Because, you know, there has always been a nuclear shadow that’s overhanging this conflict.”
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